Ms Kate Duggan:

I will go back to the question of what we call separated children or separated young people seeking international protection. To give an updated context, to date, 501 separated young people seeking international protection have presented to Tusla. Some 224 of those were from Ukraine. We are seeing an increase not only in the numbers fleeing war in Ukraine but also in the wider cohorts coming from a number of different countries. Today, 174 of those young people are in placement and, of those, 65 are from Ukraine. The same provisions within the Act apply in that, if they are there under section 5, the provision of accommodation, they are not then entitled to the aftercare allowance. We certainly would give them aftercare supports, but they would then be entitled to the normal social protection allowances. What is important is the amount of work we are doing on reunification, because that is the role Tusla has, together with our colleagues in the Department of Justice, to support those young people to reunify with their families.