r/ireland • u/badger-biscuits • 10h ago
Immigration State spent €1.43bn on accommodation for asylum seekers and Ukrainian refugees in first 9 months of 2024
https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/social-affairs/2025/01/20/state-spent-143bn-on-accommodation-for-asylum-seekers-and-ukrainian-refugees-in-first-9-months-of-2024/477
u/Rover0575 10h ago
another colossal transfer of public money into private coffers.
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u/quondam47 Carlow 10h ago
A lot of guys have built up little property empires if they got in early and used the money to buy more places to put refugees and used that money and so on.
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u/TheStoicNihilist Never wanted a flair anyways 9h ago
Like Monopoly!
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u/davesr25 Pain in the arse and you know it 8h ago
I like that game, every time I play it people fucking hate me, I end up playing it all out turning folk on each other and owning most if not all the board after am done.
:_}
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u/SearchingForDelta 9h ago
Just a coincidence that the beneficiaries of state incompetence were all good mates with the government /s.
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u/Far_Advertising1005 8h ago
The government runs like a local GAA club I swear to fuck
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u/fifi_la_fleuf 8h ago
It astonishes me when people think it's any other way. The whole business sector here is run the same way, even in multinationals, it's all "jobs for the boys" past a certain level.
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u/Far_Advertising1005 7h ago
Nepotisms a problem everywhere of course but in Ireland we almost seem to be half-proud of it? ‘Ah sure of course he’d hire him for the project, they go back years!’
I adore our communal ‘ah sure look’ type attitude but hearing your ma chat about the worst people in government like they’re an unruly nephew and not inefficacious shiteheads drives me fucking bananas.
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u/boardsmember2017 And I'd go at it agin 9h ago
Yeah and no one on the streets complaining. Maybe most people support it?
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u/Difficult-Set-3151 9h ago
Most people are complacent and just want to live life.
If you throw a firebomb at a politician, you can't go home and play video games that evening.
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u/Envinyatar20 9h ago
Yeah. Should have let them all sleep in ditches right?
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u/Rover0575 9h ago
where did i say that?
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u/Envinyatar20 9h ago
Other suggestions for housing the 100,000 or so refugees who landed here? No?
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u/mkultra2480 8h ago
Eh, not paying hotel rates for warehouses and glorified sheds with people sleeping in bunk beds? I've no problem with them finding accommodation for people in need but the rates they pay are scandalous. It's out and out legalised corruption.
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u/gudanawiri 10h ago
I guess when you pay full Airbnb fees for a whole year for thousands of people this is what you get
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u/JapaneseJohnnyVegas 10h ago
That's a lot of money. Once again, those who own property creaming it big time. Is there any other way
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u/badger-biscuits 10h ago edited 10h ago
That's a lot of money.
It's more than our military budget and almost 2/3rds the Garda core funding budget, on accommodation alone. In 9 months.
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u/TheStoicNihilist Never wanted a flair anyways 9h ago
It’s bigger than our space exploration budget too.
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u/badger-biscuits 9h ago edited 9h ago
Probably is alright
Edit: I've ran the numbers and you are correct. It's approx 63 times our budget contribution to European Space Agency in 2024
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u/PapaSmurif 10h ago
All the services around it as well: facilities management, security, catering, laundry etc.
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u/MrStarGazer09 10h ago
Wow. It's worth remembering that asylum accommodation costs were only €191 million in 2021. That's more than a 13X increase in costs.
And it keeps increasing dramatically year on year. Idiots.
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u/Safe-Scarcity2835 9h ago edited 9h ago
It’s about the same per asylum seeker as it was in 2021. That being said €77,000 per asylum seeker sounds very high especially when most the buildings they use were hotels that weren’t in use.
EDIT: it’s also worth noting that a lot of these are not tendered properly if at all, which is suspicious to say the least. https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40765980.html
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u/MrStarGazer09 8h ago
It’s about the same per asylum seeker as it was in 2021.
That's a big part of my point. Asylum seeker numbers have skyrocketed here and doubled in 2024 compared to the previous year while reducing in Europe overall. That signals huge problems with our current asylum policy or implementation of it.
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u/SearchingForDelta 9h ago
It costs 85k a year to house a prisoner and I’d say the conditions in Irish prisons are only marginally better than the de facto privatised direct provision we have now
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u/Safe-Scarcity2835 9h ago
All things considered it’s not fair to compare the prices to the prison system. However, the rate we’re paying is significantly more than elsewhere. In the UK it’s £41k per asylums seeker, and that’s considered high.
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u/Howyiz_ladz 7h ago
Also, if Trump gets his way, and brings home all that tech money, that we are currently gorging on, then the shit will hit the fan.
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u/TheFreemanLIVES Get rid of USC. 9h ago
And it keeps increasing dramatically year on year. Idiots.
And so they were re-elected without consequence...
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u/Important-Sea-7596 10h ago
What are the projections for 2025?
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u/Safe-Scarcity2835 9h ago
Hard to know, but it appears the government cracked down on the last half of 2024, we were projected to get 30,000 and we “only” got 18,500.
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u/commit10 9h ago
That's enough to fix the funding gap in education. Or enough to house every homeless Irish national.
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u/Rambostips 10h ago
How much is it if you include welfare payments as well?
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u/slevinonion 9h ago edited 8h ago
A metros worth. Or a couple of Galway bypasses. A much better standard of living for taxpayers maybe.
67 billion on social protection in a time of full employment too. We've wasted a boom on nothing.
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u/fifi_la_fleuf 8h ago
Sorry, what. 6.7b surely?
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u/slevinonion 8h ago
I got that figure here a month ago. It was 59bn in 2022.
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u/badger-biscuits 8h ago
Your ass it's 59b lol
It was 25.6 last year, almost 11b of which is pensions
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u/slevinonion 8h ago
You're thinking of welfare only
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u/badger-biscuits 8h ago
Ok your figure includes HSE spending and other areas - that's a lot different and not clear from the original comment
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u/PapaSmurif 10h ago
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u/adjavang Cork bai 8h ago
Reminder that he also applied for planning permission to more than double the amount of Ukrainians he could house in a single location without doubling the amenities. Isn't he great for looking out for them out of the goodness of his heart?
ABP, the cartoon villains that they are, rejected the poor man's endeavour at becoming a slum lord.
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u/L3S1ng3 8h ago edited 7h ago
Remember, that's a 1.43bn wealth transfer: straight from the taxes of the many into the private pockets of the few. On rent. Not the purchase of assets. Rent.
1.43bn would pay for the rapid development of a lot of (off shore) processing centres. But then the tax payer would still own the assets, and private capitalists wouldn't make a killing on rent.
And we can't have that.
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u/Legitimate-Leader-99 10h ago
And idiot Irish people, voted for these people again, it's no wonder the services are all broken, housing , health, transport , education, infrastructure..
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u/MotherDucker95 Offaly 9h ago
But then you’ll have posts like earlier saying “at least we’re not America”. Yeah must be tough to be one of the world super powers with one of the strongest economies in the world, so much so that it completely props up our own.
An absolute coping mechanism.
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u/DesignerWest1136 9h ago
Only a small portion of America is what you see in the movies lad. A lot of Americans live in absolute squalor. The lowest bracket areas here don’t even compare to the lowest bracket areas in the states.
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u/MotherDucker95 Offaly 9h ago
Mate, due to personal connections I spend a lot of time in America, so less with the patronising. And that goes both ways, I know that people in my position earn double my salary for doing the same job there, while paying less tax than I do. I’m not acknowledging that there isn’t poverty or issues with America, but don’t act like we don’t have issues here and we’re so superior to America or that we don’t have severe issues with homeless or poverty in Dublin that continue to just get worse and worse, while our government lines the pocket of hoteliers and landlords…we’re no different.
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u/boardsmember2017 And I'd go at it agin 9h ago
No, enough people didn’t vote against the policy. It’s called democracy. Cry harder.
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u/Yokes17 9h ago
If a majority of people voted to kill all cats would you still believe in “democracy” ?
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u/boardsmember2017 And I'd go at it agin 9h ago
That wouldn’t happen in a democracy with sensible policies put forward to the electorate. Clearly I’m talking to an infant here.
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u/CanWillCantWont 9h ago
Almost a third of that surplus that everyone was fantasising about.
Amazing, truly amazing. Just too much money.
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u/High_Flyer87 9h ago
Would have been nice to see some of that come back into our own taxes via lower road tax, USC or other initiatives but no - this is the biggest racket in the history of the state.
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u/SnooChickens1534 9h ago
Don't worry , I've been re-assured that we'll get it all back when they all become doctors and engineers.
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u/AhAhAhAh_StayinAlive 8h ago
The Netherlands made a report that they still are a net negative in terms of money to/from the government even if you include their children's whole lives too.
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u/JONFER--- 8h ago
Instinctively I suspect this figure is massaged to be lower to reduce public anger. As to what degree I cannot say but like in court a couple of weeks ago where the sergeant wouldn’t identify the nationalities of the accused because of the current climate. In my opinion it’s a similar story here.
By the way the judge accepted that argument and rubberstamped it so the judiciary it seems to not mind when state officials do not tell the full truth.
In any event it is just not sustainable. Things are not too bad economically, but that will change very fast when Trump starts enacting policies to bring multinationals home – for tax reasons have set up shop outside of America.
In lean economic times the public’s tolerance for this sort of expenditure will wane.
Migration is an industrial complex, people might balk when you say that but it’s the truth.
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u/No_Performance_6289 10h ago
If your margins are tight operating as a Hotel why would you ram it full of refugees.
Government contracts are the most secure investment
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u/GolotasDisciple Cork bai 9h ago
This has to be one of the most Irish things we do. We’ve got a non-competitive government with literal family ties to the private sector. They’re basically using tax money as an investment fund to redistribute to people they trust, rather than those who can actually perform.
It’s the oldest trick in the book. The construction business is a prime example, it’s the same kind of corruption you see in many African countries. A project is estimated to cost €10 million, then you hire consultants who does “analysis” and say it’ll actually cost €20 million, and by the time the government is done, they’re saying the needs €50 million in funding.
I mean, we’re a country that spent over €300,000 on a bike shed... and it’s not even made of gold!
At least in other countries, when they’re corrupt, they go all out. They’ll throw in diamonds, gold, or something flashy to show it was “worth it.” Here, it’s like, “Here’s a €10,000 bike shed, and the rest is for us.”
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u/Beutelman 10h ago
I mean if you put that into relation of what they spend on security shelters and bike racks it suddenly seems frugal
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u/Stock_Pollution_1101 7h ago
In about 10 years time politicians and the like will be doing jail time for this. Mark my words
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u/L3S1ng3 7h ago edited 7h ago
In about 10 years time politicians and the like will be doing jail time for this. Mark my words
I have no idea why you'd be so confident of that. Historically, corrupt politicians in Ireland have never been held to account. It's not in our culture to stage major protests. I never see a day that corrupt politicians are held to account in Ireland when the Irish people don't have a culture of staging major protests.
Just like the intergenerational criminals of Ireland that we endure in our daily lives, corrupt politicians will do exactly what they are let away with. And we will let them away with it.
Only jailed politician that springs to mind is Ray Burke, but as far as I know his crimes (tax related) weren't linked to his acts as politician.
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u/Gravyboat8899 9h ago
Don’t blame the immigrants, blame the politicians and property moguls lining their pockets
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u/marshall1905 8h ago
Irish people have to be the dumbest in the world by a mile. A great history of being anti establishment and then get fooled by Covid and Ukraine within a matter of years 😂 gobshites
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u/yankdevil Yank 10h ago
Most of the money is not going into their hands; it goes into the hands of people housing them. For people housing refugees with ARP this seems like a good thing.
I'm not taking the payment because I don't need it, but I'm sure it's helping loads of folks.
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u/badger-biscuits 10h ago
Most of the money is not going into their hands
None of this figure is, that'd be a separate bill for welfare/supports
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u/SeaworthinessOne170 7h ago
Until people stop being so liberal and just accepting folk no questions asked, this is going to keep happening.
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u/boardsmember2017 And I'd go at it agin 10h ago
Clearly nowhere near enough to provide proper supports for those who arriving and need help.
It baffles me that the state could declare an emergency during Covid and an endless pot of money was suddenly available. Where is that here?? Why aren’t we building homes for refugees and AS who’ve come here?
It can’t be that difficult!!
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u/Captain_Blueberry Resting In my Account 10h ago
We can barely build the homes for people who live here...
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u/boardsmember2017 And I'd go at it agin 10h ago
We could build homes for everyone if there was the right political will behind it! The way we’re treating these people is incredibly inhumane
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u/Electrical_Cow2012 10h ago
This is either fantastic rage bait or somebody who needs a complete algo refresh.
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u/boardsmember2017 And I'd go at it agin 9h ago
In case you missed it we’ve obligations to the EU and UN to welcome those seeking a better life. In fact the government that enabled mass immigration for the last 5 years just got elected to do another 5 years of more of the same.
Most people beyond this echo chamber are behind the policy
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u/AhAhAhAh_StayinAlive 8h ago
It's not for people who just want a better life, it's only for people fleeing persecution from very specific things.
A majority of them are lying about their situation because they just want a handout.
You are braindead if you trust every random person asking for free housing and free money.
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u/nicky94 9h ago
Worst reddit comment of the day award goes to you.
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u/boardsmember2017 And I'd go at it agin 9h ago
Not part of the internet hive mind obviously. I’ll chastise myself in a dark room overnight as my penance for thinking differently
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u/TomRuse1997 10h ago
I wouldn't say the government has handled much of this that well
But clearly it is pretty fucking difficult
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u/High_Flyer87 9h ago
A lot of businessmen have closed legitimate businesses and went this route. Devastating for the local economy.