A senior official in the Department of Integration has warned that accommodation for adult asylum seekers presenting without children will remain "strained" into the future.
Assistant General Secretary Carol Baxter told an Oireachtas committee that the response from communities to new accommodation was one key factor in determining how many places can be made available, and how quickly this can be done.
Figures released to RTÉ News by the Department of Integration show that - as of close of business today - 189 international protection applicants remained without State-provided accommodation.
Offers to adults presenting without children were paused on 24 January but since then 1,151 new arrivals who were not initially offered accommodation have received an offer of a place.
Ms Baxter told a meeting of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth that offers have been made to all of those who arrived on or before 3 May last.
The numbers staying in overflow accommodation at the Citywest transit hub in Dublin have reduced and are "close to available capacity," she added.
As of 21 May, Ms Baxter said, 627 adults were accommodated at Citywest, and the facility has "bed capacity for 600 persons."
She said 6,416 beds had been procured for international protection applicants so far this year, but in the same period 2,500 bed spaces had been lost.
A further 92 bed spaces are scheduled to be lost by 10 June, according to Ms Baxter, but she said the loss could have been higher, and where some accommodation contracts had been due to come to an end, extensions were secured.
She said that every week new accommodation is "brought on stream" but despite these efforts, demand had outstripped available capacity.
128 applicants to be housed in tents in Mullingar
Ms Baxter confirmed there are 102 asylum seekers living in tented accommodation in Knockalisheen, Co Clare.
She added that 128 people - made up of both international protection applicants and Ukrainian Beneficiaries of Temporary Protection - would "shortly" be accommodated in tents at Columb Barracks in Mullingar, Co Westmeath.
Asylum seekers were previously accommodated in tents at Columb Barracks.
However, a department spokesperson confirmed to RTÉ News that the tents were temporarily taken down to facilitate the construction of portacabin accommodation on the site for more medium-term use.
The spokesperson confirmed that the tents would "come back into operation shortly".
Ms Baxter said that children and their families have been accommodated throughout the accommodation shortage.
As of 24 May she confirmed that all adult female asylum seekers, and those in couples, who were not offered State-provided accommodation, have now recieved an offer of a place.
Ms Baxter said that while there were "a series of accommodation projects currently in preparation which will result in accommodation for 1,200 people, it is anticipated that accommodation capacity will remain constrained into the future."
"It takes time to bring new projects on stream particularly where they involve the repurposing of buildings and facilities as is now the case for most new projects."
She added that contractor decisions and a community's response were key factors in determining "the volume of accommodation that we can secure and the pace at which it can be made available to accommodate international protection applicants."
Ms Baxter acknowledged that the State has "a legal and moral obligation to access the claims of those who seek refuge and to provide accommodation and supports in line with the (European Union) Reception Conditions Directive."
Independent Senator Tom Clonan said he believed the situation was an emergency rather than a crisis and suggested that tents sheltering homeless asylum seekers on streets could be moved to army barracks already in use including McKee and Cathal Brugha barracks in Dublin.
