Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I ask about a matter related to the serious and urgent question of how we in Ireland can best manage our collective response in offering support to those who have come here fleeing Russian brutality in Ukraine. This morning, Labour Party Deputies and Senators wrote to the Minister's colleague, the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman, who is taking overall responsibility for co-ordinating the national response. We wrote to offer our support in assisting with that national response and effort and to offer constructive engagement in highlighting issues that have arisen in cities, towns and communities around the country. We have copied that letter to the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and also to the Taoiseach. We did so because we believe that in the face of war and barbarism and this brutal Russian aggression, our best outcomes will come from co-operation, constructive engagement and not from the sort of macho posturing and shouting that sometimes passes for democratic debate in this Chamber and about which the Ceann Comhairle has rightly been critical.

In the spirit of constructive engagement we have welcomed the initiative of the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, seeking support from Opposition parties in offering suggestions for vacant housing sites that could be used to house those coming here from Ukraine on a temporary basis. We have welcomed that call and are compiling a list of sites in conjunction with our network of local councillors around the country. We will be sending that list to the Minister. In my and the Minister's constituency of Dublin Bay South we will be proposing Baggot Street hospital, which has been mooted by my colleague, Councillor Dermot Lacey, and others, be utilised and that other vacant institutions such as, for example, the Avalon hostel on Aungier Street, could also be utilised for accommodation.

There has been a really strong response in Ireland and the awful war has shown the people's generosity of spirit. However, issues have arisen that are not trivial and require a co-ordinated response. In particular, we want to know what format the newly announced Cabinet subcommittee on co-ordinating the Ukraine response will take. With respect to accommodation, what is the role of International Protection Accommodation Services, IPAS, compared with the role of local councils, in co-ordinating the accommodation of our Ukrainian guests? We have heard concerns at local level about access to safeguarding measures for women and children in congregated settings and access to primary healthcare, GPs and mental health supports.

I am also hearing from local council officials of the need for a clear funding stream to enable councils to work with local and community voluntary groups to offer supports to Ukrainian guests and those who are hosting them here. I am thinking of the sort of networking events we have seen so successfully carried out in the Swan leisure centre in Rathmines and in other settings across the country where groups have come together on a voluntary basis to assist and support Ukrainian families and individuals coming here. We need that clear funding stream. As such, I would welcome a response from the Minister on that co-ordination of an approach to welcoming and showing support to Ukrainians.

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