Government locks the stable door as migrant accommodation crisis bites

A look back on the week in politics

Listen | 40:20
An operation took place on Wednesday to remove rows of tents near the International Protection Office in Dublin. But thousands of asylum seekers remain without accommodation. Photograph: Paul Faith / AFP.
An operation took place on Wednesday to remove rows of tents near the International Protection Office in Dublin. But thousands of asylum seekers remain without accommodation. Photograph: Paul Faith / AFP.

Host Pat Leahy and political correspondents Jack Horgan-Jones and Harry McGee discuss the week in politics:

  • The critical shortage of accommodation for people arriving in Ireland to apply for International Protection was everywhere in the news this week, as was the row between the UK and Ireland over returning migrants.
  • The Government’s moves to introduce emergency legislation and clear people in tents from Mount Street will not satisfy the desperate need to build a system that can process asylum claims quickly and efficiently and to find accommodation to new arrivals.
  • The outcome of local elections in the UK points to a potentially catastrophic general election for the Tories.
  • In Scotland, the SNP’s diminished status means independence seems further away than any point since before the 2015 referendum

They also pick their favourite Irish Times articles of the week: