Legitimate concerns?

On 11 June 2026 MLA Diane Forsyth (DUP, South Down) asked the Minister for Communities “to detail the number of people housed by his Department, having been granted Leave to Remain, in each of the last five years” (AQW 48480/22-27).

The Minister responded on 7 August 2026:

This issue is an operational matter for Northern Ireland Housing Executive; they have advised me as follows:

“We have interpreted “housed” to mean allocation of a social home and not provision of temporary accommodation in accordance with homelessness legislation. Immigration statuses, (including ‘leave to remain’) are not reportable categories for allocations in the Housing Executive’s Housing Management System. As such, it is not possible to provide the number of individuals housed on this basis in each of the last five years. However, since July 2023, the Housing Executive has recorded a homelessness reason of ‘No Accommodation in Northern Ireland: Section 95’. This category relates to individuals who have presented as homeless following support provided by the Home Office under the asylum system. Since its introduction, there have been 71 allocations to applicants with established reason of ‘No Accommodation in Northern Ireland: Section95’. The table below sets out the breakdown by financial year:

According to these figures, in the roughly two and three quarters years from July 2023 to end March 2026, only 71 households leaving the asylum system with a grant of refugee status have been allocated a social home. 

PPR matched the figures provided against NI-wide allocations data from the Housing Executive.  That revealed that for as long as such records have been kept, significantly less than 1% of social home allocations across the north have been to newly recognised refugees:

The 2023/24 NI allocations figure above comes from NIHE FOI response 418 of 17 June 2024; the 2024/25 figure, from NIHE FOI response 789 of 17 June 2025; and the 2025/26 figure, from NIHE FOI response 1181 of 12 June 2026.