Conchur Ó Giobúin

"€1.6Billion is being allocated in contingency funding across International Protection Processing, International Protection Accommodation and Ukraine Accommodation for 2026." 🚨 This is on top of all other allocations... an ENORMOUS amount of cash buried deep in the technical docs on a busy budget day. Quietly earmarked for the State’s purchase or conversion of hotels and office blocks into new IPAS centres.... Deals are being done. In total this Budget allocates ~€4.8B to IPAS (or €5billion if you include digital IDs and IT reforms.) Given that just last week, the Comptroller and Auditor General reported widespread negligence in the sector... so much so that even the Irish Times yesterday called it the “Wild West” of financial oversight. Its time to demand serious questions about how these billions will be managed. Earlier this year, the Minister for Justice published a "National Implementation Plan for the EU Migration Pact". In it was a warning that from mid 2026 “there will be two parallel international protection processes for some time and the cost to the State will increase.” TL;DR: Billions are now being spent to dismantle one failing asylum system and build another beside it.