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

My Department’s response to the crisis arising from Ukraine is part of the all-of-government response. That is co-ordinated through a Cabinet sub-committee. That innovation, which took place about six months into the crisis, was hugely important in giving us a forum where all the Ministers whom the Deputy mentioned were present and the Departments of Social Protection, Education, Health, Housing, Local Government and Heritage and the Office of Public Works, OPW, were all around the table.

They were all speaking to what we are doing in our individual Departments.

As an offshoot of that, we have an accommodation working group that is led by Conn Murray, former chief executive of Limerick City and County Council. He is looking in more detail at specific new accommodation solutions that can be applied. The Cabinet committee is particularly important. Each other line Department I have referenced is making significant contributions. The Department of Social Protection is overseeing the payment of the allowances to support those in pledged accommodation and the payment of social protection supports for those Ukrainians who are here. Local authorities, supported by the Department of Housing, Local Government Heritage, are doing a huge amount. They all now have a designated member of their senior executive team dealing with Ukraine.

In terms of the stability of places, we are accommodating 70,000 people and never said we could provide absolute stability. We said what we offer is shelter and safety. Obviously, stability is particularly important for children. We have created a range of mechanisms to accommodate people, including modular, refurbished, vacant homes and pledged accommodation. Some 13,000 people are involved in that, which gives a sense that there are real people living in very real homes. There have been times when we have had to move people out, usually when a contract ends or, on occasion, has to be cancelled. Such arrangements comprise only a small number in the wider scale of things, but those instances do occur.

Where there are issues with contracts there have been attempts to work to regularise matters. The team in the Department did a lot of work over the summer to regularise a number of contracts so that we would not have wholesale moves. However, if a provider decides to exit or, on occasion, contracts need to be ended, unfortunately there is disruption. I recognise that. We try to minimise it, but we cannot provide any absolute guarantees. We are not in a position to do that.