The Taoiseach has played down the prospect of speeding up the process of converting care homes and student accommodation to accommodate refugees and asylum seekers, reports Breaking News.
Leo Varadkar said the cooling-off period between a property becoming vacant and its reuse by the Department for Integration would be lengthened rather than shortened.
Under the department’s agreed protocols, student accommodation must remain empty for a year before it can be repurposed as accommodation for refugees or asylum seekers, reports Breaking News.
“At the moment we’re accommodating some Ukrainian refugees and some international protection applicants in tents, that’s not a situation that we want to be in,” Mr Varadkar said, reports Breaking News.
“So, you know, of course, we have to consider any option that’s available to us when it comes to providing accommodation, but I think we need to be careful about repurposing student accommodation and nursing homes, for example, to accommodate refugees or IP applicants,” he added, reports Breaking News.
Tell us your thoughts in the Facebook post and share this with your friends.