Limerick Chamber calls for balanced planning reform amid temporary IPAS accommodation needs

Leading business organisation, Limerick Chamber, calls for equity and strategic thinking within planning process for temporary IPAS accommodation

Limerick Chamber calls for urgent overhaul of IPAS planning exemptions as “two-tier planning system undermines city centre future”

Leading business organisation calls for equity and strategic thinking within planning process for temporary accommodation

Limerick Chamber has issued a strong call to Government to immediately reform how International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) facilities are being delivered within cities, warning that the current approach is “financially distorting, strategically misaligned, and socially unsustainable.”

In a letter sent to Minister James Browne (Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage) and Minister Jim O’Callaghan (Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration), Limerick Chamber CEO Michelle Gallagher expressed deep concern that the use of planning exemptions for IPAS developments is circumventing local development strategies, creating a two-tier planning system, and incentivising short-term institutional use of prime city centre buildings over long-term housing, education, or commercial projects.

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“Limerick’s city centre is being pushed in the wrong direction,” Gallagher said. “We are seeing critical development sites diverted from sustainable residential or enterprise use toward high-yield institutional accommodation, because Government contracts are simply too lucrative to compete with. This is not planning, it’s policy failure.”

Key concerns highlighted by Limerick Chamber include “Bypassing Local Development Plans”, which allow planning exemptions for IPAS developments to bypass the Limerick Local Development Plan 2022–2028, which calls for compact, vibrant city growth with long-term housing and commercial investment.

They also say it leads to a distortion of the property market, saying, “The high rates paid under IPAS contracts have inflated city centre property values, making buildings financially viable only as institutional temporary accommodation. This is crowding out residential and commercial developers and deterring long-term investment.”

The Limerick Chamber believes the situation is leading to the emergence of a two-tier system, they explain, “While traditional developers face rigorous planning conditions, costs, and community obligations, IPAS accommodation providers can sidestep these entirely, facing lower risk and receiving higher return.”

The also believe it creates an unbalanced social service provision, saying, “Limerick’s city centre already hosts a high concentration of social services, and clustering more IPAS centres in the same locations risks overburdening infrastructure and deepening urban inequality.”

“This is a textbook example of short-term thinking producing long-term entrenched planning challenges,” Gallagher continued. “You cannot regenerate a city centre by saturating it with temporary profit driven accommodation while sidelining permanent housing, students, families and commercial activity.”

Limerick Chamber’s four key demands to government are to “end planning exemptions for IPAS accommodation and subject all developments to full planning processes”; to “Introduce a balanced regional and local dispersal policy to avoid over-concentration in vulnerable city areas”; to “reform IPAS procurement contracts to avoid distorting the local housing market and blocking sustainable development”; and to “engage in structured consultation with local authorities and business stakeholders, including Limerick Chamber, prior to locating future IPAS sites”.

The Chamber is calling on the Government to act swiftly, warning that failure to do so risks undoing years of regeneration efforts and compromising the strategic goals of national and regional policies such as Housing for All, the Urban Regeneration and Development Fund, National Planning Framework and the Limerick 2030 Economic and Spatial Plan.

Gallagher concluded, “If we continue with this trajectory, we are trading our city’s sustainably planned future for highly-lucrative short-term contracts. The policy must be realigned before irreversible damage is done.”