Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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The Deputy is right to bring it back to the stakes that we face, with the incredibly difficult winter that so many Ukrainians will face. There is not only a war in their country and severe damage to buildings and critical infrastructure, but they are not able to heat themselves in many circumstances. That is a deliberate policy of the Russian military.

Any emergency accommodation centres are inspected to assess health and safety standards and fire certificates. We have a derogation from planning which allows for the repurposing of office buildings or similar for Ukrainians or international protection applicants. I already accepted that there have been issues with the pledge process, but it is important to say that 5,500 people have been accommodated under it. We have taken lessons from it which will be applied in the new vacant homes scheme that is being led by local authorities and will be rolled out in the next weeks. It will be led by each local authority, which will have greater localised knowledge and understanding of where houses are and, in certain rural parts of the country, whether houses, even though they have been offered in good faith, will really be attractive if they are in intensely isolated locations. Deputy Cairns asked about help from other Departments. The appointment of a director of services for Ukraine in every local authority, which was funded by the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, has been important for the ongoing work, both with regard to accommodation and the community fora that have been established around the country and are working well to integrate statutory services and, once accommodation has been secured, to provide a wider range of supports.