Refugee accommodation buildings being 'flipped' to IPAS centres

Buildings in North Tipperary and neighbouring counties granted planning exemptions to provide emergency accommodation are being changed to provide a different service than originally declared, a local County Councillor has claimed.

Accommodation centres which were originally granted planning exemptions on grounds of providing services for people fleeing the war in Ukraine are being "flipped" according to Nenagh Independent Councillor, Seamie Morris, and changing to provide IPAS services to people from other, mostly African and Asian, countries.

Condemning the practice as "totally unacceptable", Cllr Morris says elected representatives are "kept in the dark" about planning exemptions and are not informed when the private individuals and companies who own buildings providing emergency accommodation decide to provide different services.

Ukrainian refugees are accommodated in Ireland under the Beneficiaries of Temporary Protection (BOTP) system, however people seeking emergency accommodation from other parts of the world in Ireland are housed under the International Protection Application System (IPAS).

When building owners apply for a Section 5 Planning Exemption to legally sidestep the usual planning criteria for premises providing hospitality or catering services and begin providing emergency accommodation, they must specify if they intend on providing BTOP or IPAS accommodation.

Cllr Morris told a meeting of the Municipal Council for the area that has evidence of buildings changing emergency accommodation purpose and that residents of the towns where the changes are happening are unhappy.

"We thought we were part of the process, but we're not", Cllr Morris said, adding that Councillors are often "the last to know" when Section 5 exemptions are applied for.

He said the "Department are acting the absolute mick" and called on the local authority to stop co-operating with Section 5 applications until Councillors and all elected representatives are better informed as part of the process.

Cllr Morris said that at one meeting Tipperary's County Councillors were told "they didn't trust us enough to give us information based on the fact that places had been burned down", which he said was "astonishing".

"That's what we're dealing with as Councillors and there are people out there who think that we are being told what is going on - we're not, we're the last to be told", he said.

"But things have changed now and there were a lot of applications for Section 5's for BOTP accommodation which are Ukrainian refugees and most people have no problem with that, but what's happening now is those buildings are being flipped to IPAS.

"I saw one contract and it was three years for BOTP and I saw another contract come back and it was three years BOTP and two years IPAS - so what I'm saying is the contract that we thought was acceptable to the people we represent has now become unacceptable with us not knowing about it", Cllr Morris explained.

He also reference the unfolding situation at Dundrum House Hotel in South Tipperary, where multi-million euro contracts for emergency accommodation were signed with a company valued at €120m and only in existence for a few weeks before the contracts were signed.

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"That could be any of us tomorrow and we as a country are handing out multi-million euro contracts - when the company was only set up a couple of weeks ago you have to wonder what is going on", he said.

He added that many people in Nenagh are expressing concern to him that a premises in Nenagh will soon become an IPAS centre. The former hotel located on Kenyon Street in the centre of the town is the subject of much speculation locally he said and that people are being misinformed online and local representatives cannot dispel the rumours.

"That doesn't stop our phones ringing or us being accused of being part of it and those contracts are being flipped without us knowing about it", Cllr Morris said.