IPAS Transparency Page Offline After Aontacht Inquiry Over Missing Document

An internal email inadvertently sent to Aontacht Media suggests the Minister’s Office in the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration’s International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) may have removed the webpage supposed to offer transparency on asylum seeker housing after questions were raised about a missing document.

The correspondence began after journalist László Molnárfi contacted IPAS to report that a document linked from the IPAS “Collections” webpage could not be accessed. This section of the departmental site contained statistics, contract values and IPAS inspection reports. After clarifying that the broken link referred to "Document 98540", rather than the webpage itself, the matter appeared to prompt internal discussions. 

The archived version of the page, now taken offline, shows that the missing document related to commercial contracts for IPAS, which included the “centre name; the period of the contract; the total value of the contract (up to the end of the specified year); the capacity; the contractor and the location of the centre”. 

In an email mistakenly sent directly to Molnárfi instead of remaining internal, an IPAS staff member wrote: "Can you hold off on sending a response for a day or two? It is likely that that page is supposed to come down in its entirety, but I need to confirm."

The email raises questions about whether the decision to remove the webpage coincided with external scrutiny of missing procurement documents.

After informing IPAS that the internal message had been sent to him in error, Molnárfi again requested a copy of the missing document. Instead of providing it, the department directed him to contact the Minister’s Office in the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration or submit a Freedom of Information (FOI) request. 

The webpage was then taken offline in its entirety, and now seems to be replaced with another, which only contains statistical data, without any details on inspection reports and commercial contracts.

The exchange is likely to prompt further questions over the handling of public procurement records and the timing of the apparent removal of the IPAS transparency page from public view.