Ms Sheenagh Rooney:

On that, we have a portfolio of 60,000 in our accommodation at the moment. While we have a certain amount of accommodation provision which has come from the tourism sector, there is obviously a lot which has not. We are concentrating on procuring from self-catering now as opposed to service. That is very much a policy which we are advocating, because we want beneficiaries of temporary protection, BOTPs to move into more independent accommodation. There are more than 20,000 Ukrainians who are employed, and that is very valuable, and a lot of those people want to make their independent way. There are a number of ways in which they can do that, through the offer a home scheme and pledged accommodation.

However, on the longer-term response, we continue to model the arrivals at 500 on average per week, which means we will have a need for 15,000 extra accommodation spaces by the end of this year. That is what we are working towards at the moment, and obviously we will have to see how the conflict goes. How that is being overseen is through the accommodation working group, which is chaired by an independent chair who is overseen by the Department of the Taoiseach. That work is progressing a myriad of different accommodation streams. We spoke in here about the fast build, but there is also the refurbishment stream. There is what more can be done on the offer a home scheme. We are also looking at other proof of concept sites to develop pod-style accommodation, which can hopefully be delivered quicker.

There is a lot of intense and very active work there, and the reason that is being undertaken is a full acknowledgment that we want BOTPs to be integrated in society. We want them to be in schools, working, and to access all the services they can. A key part of that is to have more independent accommodation, and that is the job of the accommodation working group, which is very much a collaborative, cross-government effort.