Varadkar: Time lag to turn nursing homes into refugee housing may be extended

The Taoiseach has downplayed the prospect of fast tracking the process for repurposing nursing homes and student accommodation to house refugees and asylum seekers.

Leo Varadkar said the cooling-off period between a property becoming vacant and it being reused by the Department of Integration is more likely to be extended, rather than reduced.

Under protocols agreed by the department, student accommodation must be vacant for one year before it can be repurposed as refugee or asylum seeker accommodation.

The cooling-off period is longer for nursing homes. They must be vacant for 18 months prior to being reused. Any functioning nursing home must also give residents and their families six months’ notice before they can close their doors – meaning the wait period to repurpose is effectively two years for any currently operating facility.

The lag periods were agreed to guard against an influx of private sector operators suddenly switching business models, potentially creating further pressure on nursing home and student accommodation places.

Mr Varadkar was asked at his pre-Christmas media briefing whether the Government was considering reviewing the cooling-off periods, given the shortage of state accommodation for international protection (IP) applicants.

“At the moment we’re accommodating some Ukrainian refugees and some international protection applicants in tents, you know, that’s not a situation that we want to be in,” he said.

“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.

“And I’m not saying that should never be done but I think if communities feel that they’re, you know, losing their nursing home or losing their student accommodation to international protection (applicants) or to refugees, that doesn’t help us to make the case in favour of treating refugees well and accepting new people into your area, so we just have to be cognisant of all that.”

In Co Galway last weekend, a former hotel earmarked to house 70 IP applicants was set alight in a suspected arson attack. That followed a blockade and protest by locals unhappy by the decision to use the hotel as asylum seeker accommodation.

There have been similar incidents at other properties proposed for repurposing during 2023.

Mr Varadkar said the Government was not proposing to reduce the cooling-off periods.

“I think it’s one year (for) student accommodation at the moment and two years for nursing homes,” he said.

“If anything we might make that longer because there is a concern that some student accommodation providers and some nursing providers might choose to bring the nursing home or student accommodation out of service in the hope that they can do better financially, by then making it available in a year or two for refugee or IP accommodation. We just need to be wise to that risk.

“And this isn’t a one size fits all. What can work, some nursing homes are just out of date, they’re not up to standard, and some student accommodation is substandard, and what you’ll see sometimes is that a new nursing home gets built and the old nursing home can then be repurposed for accommodation – so that’s OK.”