Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The Senator is absolutely right in terms of the fantastic support that local authorities have given my Department, and their parent Department, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage in responding to this. That work has put pressure on them, which is why I welcome the moves taken by the Minister, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, to designate a new director of services for Ukraine response in every local authority and to resource that with a number of staff. Giving each local authority a centralised employee to deal with this, as such, will hopefully allow the extra work that has been generated to be dealt with there, rather than interfering by adding more work to the very valuable work that local authorities do.

I cannot speak in detail on the education aspect, other than to recognise that significant additional pressure has been put on schools in certain areas. Principals have done a fantastic job, and schools have been incredibly welcoming to Ukrainian children. The Department of Education has provided additional English-language resources. In some areas, it has provided additional teaching staff. Tusla has put additional staff into its services around educational welfare as well. Again, this is to support the work of linking students to school places. There may not be school places always in the areas where Ukrainians are currently located. More work will have to be done on that over the summer while young people are out of school in order to ensure that children and young people can join schools as seamlessly as possible in September. Obviously, we are expecting all Ukrainian children’s participation in school to be temporary. It is understood that these are temporary measures which are for one year at the moment, under the temporary protection directive. That could be extended, but these are seen as temporary placements in schools; they are not seen as permanent.

The Senator spoke about the response of the significant eastern European community across the country. We have very large Polish, Lithuanian and Romanian communities in my constituency in Dublin West. We have received support from nationality groups, NGOs and charities that already established support. Of course, the small existing Ukrainian community in the country has done a lot and there are thousands of Ukrainians living with family members. The Senator will recall that we are providing accommodation for 21,000 and there are another 10,000 either living on their own means or many of them are living with family and friends from Ukraine, but also, of course, there is high intermingling between Ukrainians and Poles along there border there and family connections would be significant.

The point the Senator made about standards is important. We always have to review standards in the accommodation. We have quality inspectors who we send around if there is an issue that has arisen. When you procure as much accommodation as we had to in as short of a period as possible, mistakes will be made. When they are identified to us and there is an issue, we work to address them as quickly as possible. Issues will come up and we will seek to address them quickly. It is on that basis. Of course, everything done through temporary procurement will have to be officially procured later on.