Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 16 February 2023

Public Accounts Committee

2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 40 - Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (Resumed)

9:30 am

Mr. Kevin McCarthy:

On the communications front, there is certainly a challenge and I have acknowledged the challenge that we faced where we are trying to move people into emergency centres. The biggest challenge has been on the international protection front. We have opened up 60 centres of international protection since 1 January last year. We have opened up over 700 centres of Ukraine accommodation since last year. In all of those, for the most part, communities have been welcoming and supportive. There has been a relatively small number but an increasing number, and an increasingly recent prevalence, of resistance to what is happening. We are very well aware of that. We are very well aware of the need to get clear information out to public representatives in those areas on time.