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:

We have close ongoing engagement with the Department of Education. There is an official from the Department of Education now on secondment to our accommodation team. We also have somebody on secondment from the HSE on to our team as well. I think that is a reflection of the kind of close engagement that we have with those providers because obviously, we are very conscious of the impact on services in any of the locations that we are going into. As the Deputy will know, the Government approved a community fund, before Christmas, of €50 million to support communities which have taken significant numbers of refugees since the beginning of last year, recognising the impact on those communities.