‘Vast potential’ for pod-style accommodation to house migrants quicker – O’Brien

Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien has said pod-style accommodation has “vast potential” to house migrants quicker.

The minister said that three pilot projects – one in Columb Barracks in Mullingar – would be fast, “good quality” accommodation that would be easier to find sites for compared with modular housing.

He made the comments as the government came under pressure this week over hundreds of asylum seekers being forced to sleep in tents due to no State-provided accommodation being available.

The government has blamed years of underinvestment in the severe shortage of housing in Ireland, and said the affordability of rents and house prices is best tackled by addressing the supply issue.

Efforts are also under way to refurbish some public buildings that are not in use to house asylum seekers and refugees, as requested by the Minister for Children Equality and Integration Roderic O’Gorman.

Mr O’Gorman said this week that Ireland ‘fell behind’ in accommodating asylum seekers because at the end of March hotels ended contracts with the department.

This meant that half of the 5,000 beds brought on stream since January for asylum seekers had to be used to re-accommodate those who had to leave hotels.

Speaking to reporters in Co Westmeath, Tanaiste Micheal Martin acknowledged that the government has to provide accommodation for asylum seekers quicker than it has been doing.

“Overall, in terms of services, there have been some strains on medical services but people have responded well within our health services, people have responded very well within our education services,” he said.

“The challenge for us really is to provide accommodation more quickly, and particularly accommodation that we’ve identified, but it has to go through the various regulatory processes before it can come on stream, and that the accommodation would be of a higher quality for people.”

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Mr O’Brien said that the Cabinet believed pod-style accommodation offered “real potential” to help house hundreds of asylum seekers in Ireland.

Around 170-180 international protection applicants are arriving in Ireland per week; the government plans to bring 350 beds on stream at centres across the country this week for asylum seekers.

“I think there’s a real opportunity with the pods to get that moving quicker,” he said on Friday.

“There’s three sites identified – Columb Barracks being one of them, that construction is under way – they’ll be used as kind of exemplar sites and example sites. And I think there’s vast potential there. They’re really good quality.”

He said that the pod-style accommodation is different from the rapid-build modular homes the government is working on, and that it would be easier to find suitable sites to place them.

“Actually, the local authorities, under my direction, identified the sites (for modular homes). That work is under way, we’ll have 750 modular homes through the Office of Public Works (OPW),” he said.

“I think that (pods) can potentially provide accommodation quicker, is more open to maybe more difficult sites like brownfield sites as well.

“Some of the modular (homes), there’s certain topographies of sites that are needed to get that in, so difficult sites can make that harder.

“But I believe and Cabinet believe there’s real potential in the pods and I would like to provide them at scale, in addition to what we’re doing about refurbishing.”

He said that Con Murray, a former chief executive of Limerick city and county council, has been working for the department for a number of weeks to “scale up accommodation” for Ukrainians and for international protection applicants, which he said “falls under the Department of Children and Roderic, but we support them in that space”.

When asked how widespread pod-style accommodation would be, Mr O’Brien said “at scale is at scale”.

“(I’m) not going to put a number on it yet, but I want to see it scaled up and scaled up quickly, and scaled up means initially in the hundreds, and to build on it from there,” he added.

“It is important they’re designed properly, you’re not just dropping them into a field, you need to have all the other siteworks done as well.”

Mr O’Brien also said the government had made a decision to implement “meaningful and effective measures” in the next Budget to retain and attract new landlords.

“We need a functioning private rental sector, and it hasn’t been functioning for a long number of years as it should do,” he said.

He was speaking as he opened 28 new social homes in Swords in north Dublin, to be managed by the Iveagh Trust.

The chair of the Iveagh Trust, Rory Guinness, presented Mr O’Brien with an heirloom of the family to cut the ribbon – a sword businessman Edward Cecil Guinness wore to a party in Iveagh House in 1890.

“As a throwback to the 1890s, we have a bit of a surprise – a sword in Swords,” Mr Guinness said.

“What could be more appropriate a way to open this development than for the minister to cut the ribbon with a sword?”