Cockroach infestations, “rats running through tents” and “aggressive behaviour” have been raised in reports on centres accommodating international protection applicants in recent months.
Reports submitted to the International Protection and Accommodation Service (IPAS) show numerous fire safety incidents were detected and issues around the smoking of illegal substances were raised by centre managers during the first six months of this year.
In one case, a child was brought to hospital “having allegedly ingested a cockroach” in a room accommodating a family of five where pest infestations were an ongoing issue, according to incident reports released to The Irish Times following a Freedom of Information request.
One manager requested a family be transferred “on a permanent basis” after claiming they “continue to bring items into the house containing cockroaches”. Pest control was called three times, at a cost of “€700 per call-out”, to exterminate cockroaches in the family’s accommodation, they said.
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Conditions in the State’s 49 official IPAS centres are monitored by the Health Information and Quality Authority and must provide kitchen facilities to residents, as per national standards for accommodation centres which became legally binding in January 2021.
Some 6,740 asylum seekers are staying in these centres. However, another 23,174 people, including 6,111 children, live in 256 ‘emergency accommodation centres’ which are not legally obliged to adhere to the national standards. As a result, many of these centres, some of which previously operated as hotels, do not have independent cooking facilities.
In May, management of the tented accommodation at the former Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum, Dublin, said they would carry out weekly “pest control visits” after support workers were shown videos of “rats running through the tents”.
In an email, an IPAS official said they had learned “a dead rat was found underneath the bed of a resident who has serious medical conditions”. In response, the centre’s manager wrote that a picture of a “dead mouse in a tent” had been shown to a social inclusion nurse and that “open biscuits” were subsequently found in the tent. Officials now attend every fortnight “to rebait the traps” and “additional Tupperware” is being provided for food storage, said the manager.
One fire safety report noted that a male resident collapsed and was “dragged” from his room in late May after a fire broke out. Staff found the man was “highly intoxicated” and had been lighting a cigarette when it fell and set fire to his room. The man refused to go to hospital, despite efforts by gardaí and staff to get him into an ambulance, according to the report. The fire was brought under control within minutes and officers found “no sign of any structural damage” to the room.
In another case, gardaí were called after a hotel fire alarm went off and a “cloud of smoke” emerged from a room where young male residents, aged 18 to 19, had been “smoking illegal substances”. Gardaí found no proof of these substances, but another resident, who was not present at the time, later approached management “very shaken”, after he discovered his roommates had “hid the drugs under his bed”.
All residents at another centre were evacuated in January after a fuse in the basement overloaded and set the main electrical board on fire. An electrician advised that the centre remove “all large electrical equipment” from the rooms “especially electrical heaters which caused the overload”.
Numerous reports reference residents smoking in their rooms, with some tampering with smoke detection devices. In some cases, reports were made of “suspected marijuana” and “illegal substances” being smoked in centres, while one noted a “shisha pipe” in an apartment.
One report reveals two residents were arrested by gardaí in February after an altercation broke out between a Somali resident and two Georgian residents, two of whom became “extremely aggressive”. A separate report from February warned of “physical altercations” between residents who had “extremely poor attitudes” towards staff and “a total disregard to rules”.
Another noted an “airsoft gun” – a replica firearm used recreationally for mock war games – was confiscated from a resident during a fire safety inspection.
A number of reports complained that residents were cooking food in their bedrooms. In one case, an inspection was carried after a doctor voiced concern that a lack of ventilation in the room could be impacting the health of the three children sleeping there.
Management discovered the room had “mould” and was “extremely hot” and that the fire alarm was “covered with cling film”. The children’s mother said she could not leave the room to cook because she had a newborn child. The report added that the kitchen was “20 metres away”.
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