Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I set out in my initial answer to highlight, as the Deputy has said, how complex the area is and that it is not just about refuge spaces. There are many other elements to it and the strategy is a very significant part of that. I appreciate the accommodation piece is very significant. I assure the Deputy and others that while we are dealing with a great crisis in Ukraine, we are certainly not taking our eyes off this. It is a very significant priority for me and will continue to be so.

The locations we have identified, from the 82 to the additional counties, have been chosen on the basis of required proximity to a refuge as well as the need for the spaces per head of population. They represent areas where there is the most significant underprovision.

We now have a high-level interdepartmental group looking at the current system for the provision of refuge spaces and identifying the changes that can be made to the system to try to deliver the additional spaces in the short term, which is the 82 plus the initial counties. It is also looking at the lifetime of the next strategy, which will be in a number of years and beyond that, which will be more like a ten-year plan, and which will bring us to the Istanbul Convention.

My intention is that the timelines for delivery of these places would be set out in those three phases. They will be outlined in the third national strategy, and the detail as to how that is going to be done will be set out in the strategy. The progress we are making will all become clear when we publish the strategy in a matter of weeks. We are doing this work through the interdepartmental group that is bringing together my Department, Tusla, the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. We have already engaged with a number of groups that are developing new plans themselves and we are trying to iron out where the problems are and how we can improve the overall system and process. We have had a number of meetings and it is going very well.

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