Mr. Kevin McCarthy:

I thank the committee for the invitation to assist in its examination of the 2022 appropriation account for the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. I am accompanied by my colleagues, Dr. Anne-Marie Brooks, Ms Sheenagh Rooney, Mr. Colm Ó Conaill, Mr. David Delaney and Ms Laura McGarrigle, assistant secretaries. I am also supported by Mr. Andrew Patterson, Ms Janice Witcombe, and Mr. Gordon Gaffney, principal officers, and Ms Maria Ronayne and Ms Mary-Louise Molloy, professional accountants.

In my opening statement, I will give a very brief overview of the main features of the Vote. We provided the committee with a briefing note in advance of the meeting which sets out further details of expenditure and activity in 2022. The Department has five programme areas encompassing responsibility for child protection and welfare; prevention and early intervention; adoption, family supports, early learning and childcare; youth services and youth justice; as well as the areas of equality, integration, international protection and disability policy.

When the war in Ukraine began in February 2022, the Department was tasked with leading on the provision of emergency short-term accommodation for Ukrainian beneficiaries of temporary protection as part of the Government's humanitarian crisis response. The 2022 account predates the completion of the transfer of functions for community-based specialists and disability services from the Department of Health in March 2023. The total provision for the Vote in 2022 was €2.8 billion, which included capital carry-over of €3.2 million. The current expenditure allocation is €2.75 billion with a further €71.2 million allocated for capital expenditure, including carry-over. The net allocation for the Vote was €2.78 billion on appropriations when aid of €34.6 million is taken into account. This comprised an original allocation of €2.06 billion, a deferred surrender of €3.2 million and a Supplementary Estimate of €719.4 million.

The final outturn for the Vote in 2022 was €2.69 billion, with a surrender at year end of €86.7 million. The year 2022 saw progress on a number of important policy and legislative milestones for the Department, including the introduction of the new funding model for early learning and childcare and the commencement of year one of core funding under the new model. This enjoyed participation rates of 95% and created the conditions for a fee freeze among services. It also provided for historic employment regulation orders that set minimum rates of pay, with more than 70% of staff in the sector benefiting from improvements in pay. Two new childcare scheme reforms were introduced, with the discontinuation of the practice of deducting hours spent in preschool or school from the entitlement to national childcare scheme subsidised hours, and the extension of the age of eligibility to 15 years to access the universal subsidy. The measures resulted in an increase in the number of registrations from circa 30,000 at the start of 2022 to 98,000 by the year end. Under the action plan for survivors of mother and baby institutions, 2022 also saw the enactment of the Birth Information and Tracing Act, landmark legislation that provides guaranteed access to birth and early-life information where it exists. Since the scheme launched in October 2022, there have been more than 12,500 applications for birth information with 97%, or almost 12,150 cases, complete. The Institutional Burials Act 2022 was also developed, enacted and commenced.

As the committee is aware, the outbreak of the war in Ukraine resulted in significant operational challenges for the Department in 2022. Since February 2022, more than 106,000 people have sought temporary protection in Ireland, more than 79% of whom have sought supported accommodation through this Department. This was the largest mobilisation of humanitarian support in the history of the State and required a large-scale emergency response to be stepped up in 2022 to meet the daily demand that materialised for shelter. The response involved contracting and activating emergency accommodation across hotels, bed and breakfasts, guesthouses and hostels, self-catering accommodation, repurposed and refurbished buildings, sports centres and arenas, scouting facilities, properties offered by religious and voluntary bodies, student accommodation, military facilities, temporary tented facilities and local authority emergency rest centres, as well as pledged accommodation in people’s homes or second properties. By year end 2022, slightly less than 70,000 beneficiaries of temporary protection had arrived in Ireland, just above 54,000 of whom required State-supported accommodation. We are grateful to the communities across Ireland who gave their wholehearted support to this national effort. The response had a major impact on the work of the Department in 2022, with a need for organisational structures, processes and staff to be rapidly adapted, developed and deployed to support the effort. There was no provision for Ukraine spending in the original 2022 Estimate for the Vote. A Supplementary Estimate in late 2022 was provided to meet the costs incurred.

In 2022 there was also a substantial increase in the number of new arrivals seeking international protection accommodation in Ireland with just above 13,600 new arrivals seeking protection from the State. Between 2017 and 2019 an average of 3,500 people had applied for protection each year, or an average of 67 people per week. As the committee is aware, international protection arrival numbers remain significantly elevated since 2022 and are more recently on a further significant upward trajectory. In 2023, more than 13,000 people arrived in Ireland seeking protection, averaging 250 people per week - 12,000 of those sought accommodation from the State. In the first 12 weeks of 2024, more than 5,100 people claimed international protection compared with 2,900 people for the same period in 2023. An increase of more than 75% in arrival numbers. Procuring enough bed space to keep pace with incoming arrivals remains extremely challenging. This is particularly so in the case of accommodation for single males. In December 2023, despite intensive efforts to source emergency accommodation, the Department could no longer provide accommodation to all international protection applicants. A system of triage of adult males is in place to ensure that those who are most vulnerable are prioritised, and applicants who are not provided with accommodation receive a temporary increase to their daily expense allowance. Due to the scale of arrivals and the urgency of need, it inevitably means that available emergency accommodation for those seeking refuge must also be occupied on a faster timeline than would otherwise be the case.

The Department is committed to working with elected representatives, local authorities and local communities to ensure that local dialogue is fact-based and to counter misinformation that has been used in some instances to generate fear and resistance when new accommodation centres are proposed. A community engagement team, based in the Department and supported by the Department of the Taoiseach, was established in October last year to manage direct engagement with elected representatives, relevant local authorities, local development companies and other entities and individuals to provide accurate information and to assist with the welcome and integration process for new arrivals. The Department is pursuing all possible accommodation options to provide shelter and prevent homelessness. There are currently 492 people accommodated in tented solutions in three locations - Knockalisheen, County Clare; Columb Barracks, County Westmeath; and the former Central Mental Hospital in County Dublin. Recognising the scale of the challenges, a new comprehensive accommodation strategy for international protection applicants was recently agreed by Government, setting out a revised implementation approach to previously planned reforms. The aim is to move away from full reliance on private providers and towards a core of State-owned accommodation, delivering 14,000 State-owned beds by 2028. This will be supplemented, as required, by high standard commercial providers. The strategy seeks to address the current accommodation shortfall while reforming the system over the longer term to ensure the State can meet its international commitments on a more sustainable basis. Given the current pressures, a reliance on private and commercial providers will continue into the short and medium term. A revised approach to accommodation policy for Ukrainian beneficiaries of temporary protection has also been agreed by Government to more closely align Ireland’s offering on this front with supports in other EU member states. From 14 March 2024, anyone who registers for temporary protection and is looking for State-provided accommodation in Ireland is now offered accommodation for a maximum of 90 days in designated accommodation centres.

I thank all of my colleagues in the Department and our various partner organisations for the enormous contributions they have made in delivering on so many of our objectives during 2022 and since, in the face of unprecedented challenges. I thank the Chair and the committee and look forward to taking their questions.