Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I was on the airwaves the other day praising the efforts of the Department throughout the Ukrainian crisis. In March of last year, the Department was the first Department to use a geographical information system, GIS, and capacity mapping, in this case to determine where schools could meet the need arising from the influx of Ukrainian children. That went very well and was led by the Department. Subsequently, the regional education and language team, REALT, system was set up and it has also worked very well in the mid-west. In County Clare, about 3.5% of our county's population is Ukrainian, and that is not counting asylum seekers who have come here under the direct provision model. It is quite large and onerous.

I do not want to lay any fault on the Minister's Department, given the situation has been well managed. Nevertheless, largely down to the protests in East Wall and the other awful protests elsewhere in the country, the recent approach of the International Protection Accommodation Services, IPAS, has been not to tell communities, schools or the Department of Education until the eleventh hour. I am going to raise this tomorrow with the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. Again, it is not a criticism of the REALTs, the Minister or her Department but of the current approach of IPAS. A centre is planned for Shannon, County Clare, where we have found out, through parliamentary questions and a drip-drip of information, that 300 people will come. Nobody has notified the Department or the REALTs and nobody has spoken to any of the six school principals, yet there is already an enrolment crisis there.

I do not know whether there is anything to be said in response during this meeting but the Minister and her officials might have oversight. This is a matter on which they have led very well for many months but IPAS is now withholding information, and that is down to the fact information has been misused in recent weeks. When there is not enough information, that can get polluted with wrong information and exploited by people on the far right. Will the Minister speak to the REALT co-ordinators and, rather than have them wait for this information to come, in this instance reach out and set out the facts, whether we need to plan for September 2023 and possibly sooner than that to accommodate these children.