FLOATING ACCOMMODATION TO house people seeking international protection is “months away” from being ready, according to the Department of Integration.

It comes as it has emerged that one scheme aiming to alleviate the accommodation crisis, which would see  council tenants to sublet spare rooms in their homes, has returned little uptake. 

Last week, Minister Roderic O’Gorman confirmed his department is looking at using accommodation aboard barges or moored ships, also known as “floatels”.

It was a reversal of previous policy, when O’Gorman’s department ruled out the idea of housing Ukrainians in a luxury cruise ship at Dublin Port last summer, due to concerns that this would take up too much space at the port.

Carol Baxter, assistant secretary at the department, has now said that it is “a very serious strand we are working on at the moment” but it’s “months away” from being ready.

“We have to finalise berths we have to issue a request for tender for the operating operation that would bring a vessel aboard so quite a degree of steps to do, quite a bit of engagement with the relevant local authorities,” told the Oireachtas Committee on Integration this week.

“So this is months away but it is a very serious strand that we are working on.”

Wicklow Sinn Féin TD John Brady had queried the scheme, adding that communication is already taking place between some ports and the International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS)

One potential location, the Port of Cork, has confirmed that it is engaged with talks with IPAS.

Brady noted that an announcement made last month would see tenants in local authority properties be able to take in asylum seekers in their spare rooms, but said that he had received “some concerns” from local councils that they “hadn’t been given any guidelines” to promote the scheme and any knock-on implications, including on the number of rooms already in a house.

Michael Walsh, appearing as a representative of the City and County Managers Association, said there has been “clear communication” to local authorities from the government but added that there “hasn’t been any particular uptake” on the council tenant scheme.

Walsh, who is the chief executive of Waterford City and County Council, added: “There would be some resistance in local authorities around it, but equally it’s a government decision.”

The committee heard that 111 inspections were carried out at accommodation centres last year, with around three inspections conducted of each property every year.