Mr. David Kelly:

There would be. Local authorities do market engagement when they are looking for hotel rooms to supplement their own scheduled accommodation and the family hubs that have been introduced in a lot of areas. What we have seen in recent years is competition for emergency accommodation, including to support the arrival of Ukrainians. The price set by hotels is based on demand, so we are seeing the market price. We do not have an analysis for this year yet but if we compare the expenditure on hotels between 2021 and 2022, it went up from €16 million to €21 million so obviously the pressure on commercial hotels started during last year.

We are seeing a fairly significant increase in the cost of providing emergency accommodation. As numbers go up and scheduled services do not have capacity there can be an additional reliance on the commercial sector. That is part of the reason there was such a significant Supplementary Estimate of €102 million this year. There is no doubt there are pressures on services. I think 1,000 new beds were introduced this year, but there was also a requirement to bring in more emergency accommodation and that includes hotels. At times, when the conditions are right, we get better value there, but at the moment the conditions are not good for getting good value from the commercial hotels.