Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Since the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine on 24 February, and the invoking of the temporary protection directive shortly thereafter, my Department has been working intensively as part of the cross-government response to the Ukraine crisis.

My Department’s role is focused on the immediate accommodation needs of those who have fled here. We have established a Ukraine unit within the Department, comprised of almost 50 staff, to support this effort. The accommodation provided is temporary in nature and is focused on the emergency need to provide shelter. The team is also assisting in directing refugees to all relevant Departments, agencies, NGOs and local authorities, as well as the private sector, to ensure that refugees are facilitated in accessing the supports from others that they require.

I want to focus on the scale of the challenge being faced across the Government, and in particular within my own Department, at this present time. As of yesterday, 27,372 people have fled here from Ukraine, with some 18,000 of them requiring accommodation. Ireland has never experienced an influx of refugees on this scale before.

We are doing so at a time when our own housing crisis is severe and approximately 10,000 people are in direct provision, which is a system of accommodation we are committed to ending. It is in this context my Department has been tasked with finding accommodation for what is now just short of 20,000 people in the space of two months. Thus far, everyone who has fled here from Ukraine has been offered a place of safety and security. I pay tribute to the efforts of my own officials, many of whom have worked long hours every day since the outbreak of the conflict to source this accommodation, to the local authorities and the NGOs that have supported this work and in particular the communities across the country that have done so much and been so welcoming to Ukrainians.

As I acknowledged when speaking on this previously in the House, much of the accommodation being provided is not perfect and involves a degree of congregated or grouped living. Over the past week, local authorities stood up emergency accommodation locations across the country and the majority of immediate accommodation allocated at this time is in emergency accommodation. The nature of emergency accommodation is that it is temporary and can involve a number of moves for those involved, which is also a logistical challenge for the Department. This need to move people on from the temporary and emergency accommodation is not ideal. We would have hoped not to add to the stresses of our new arrivals. However, it must be acknowledged we are dealing with a crisis of proportions absolutely unprecedented in the modern era. We must not fail in our endeavours to meet this crisis and meet the needs of these refugees to the very best of our ability. It is with this in mind my Department is exploring all options for accommodating new arrivals and that has involved some creative solutions to an ever-evolving situation. In an effort to reach those solutions my Department has contracted approximately 11,500 hotel beds, with additional capacity being pursued through guest houses and bed and breakfasts, accommodation pledged by the general public, State-owned or privately-owned properties that may be suitable for long-term accommodation, accommodation belonging to volunteer bodies such as Scouting Ireland, religious properties, local authority facilities and working with Airbnb. The Millstreet Green Glens Arena has opened and will take up to 320 people and some larger serviced accommodation centres such as hotels will also come on line soon. My Department is advancing other options such as student accommodation as well. In doing all this the central consideration is the immediate safety and security of the displaced people fleeing Ukraine.

If the initial accommodation provided to someone is in emergency accommodation, every effort is made to move people to serviced accommodation as soon as possible. People in serviced accommodation are advised when arriving this is temporary and the intention is they will be moved into pledged or other medium-term accommodation as soon as this is available and that this may not be in the same area as the initial temporary accommodation. I know people have made contacts and have established connections in these locations and may wish to remain there. However, we must also recognise this crisis is real and continues to result in a very large number of people arriving on a daily basis. Until such time as they are housed in permanent accommodation, the movement of people may be part of our response here. Again, this is not perfect and is not our preference but it is part of the reality of the situation we face.

I am conscious there has been a focus on the issue of pledged accommodation and we welcome those people who have opened their homes to people fleeing the crisis in Ukraine. As a Government, we are incredibly grateful for those offers. These pledges have been made through the Irish Red Cross, IRC, and to date in excess of 24,000 pledges have been made. The process of getting people moved into pledged accommodation has been slower than I would like. I refer to the scaling up of what needed to be done. This was a process that had had 600 pledges come in over a five-year period and then experienced 24,000 over a five-week period. We had to scale up and support the Red Cross in putting in the infrastructure. That included funding, staff and additional personnel from other State bodies like Pobal and the Defence Forces.

The process of matching people with pledged accommodation or pledged rooms is ongoing at the moment. My Department is working closely with the IRC to deliver that. Of course, because we are dealing with people fleeing a situation of really unimaginable suffering and stress, that process of moving people into vacant or shared accommodation must be done right and with consideration of the needs of the people involved. That process takes time. I thank those who pledged their accommodation generously for their patience to date and in those cases where we have not yet been able to arrange for a Ukrainian family to move in, I ask for some more patience. We are ramping up this system and ensuring it will work quickly and effectively. My Department understands from the Irish Red Cross all those who have pledged accommodation have now received a phone call. Over 32,000 phone calls were made. Of those calls, to date 13,000 were not responded to and 6,000 people said they needed to withdraw from the original pledges for various reasons. We are following up with all those who have contacted. Of the pledged vacant properties, 1,837, having been processed by the Irish Red Cross, have been forwarded by my Department to the partners that are assisting us with moving people into these properties. These are predominantly the local authorities across the country. I again want to thank them for their assistance. There is also the Peter McVerry Trust and the International Organization for Migration, IOM. At every point, for various reasons some properties cannot be taken up but to date, 700 people have moved in to pledged accommodation across the country. This is mainly to vacant units.

We are now looking at the vetting process for the shared accommodation as well to ensure that can be done as quickly as possible. However, especially where a child or vulnerable person is moving into shared accommodation, I think everyone would agree a vetting process is an essential part of the child protection measures we must take. As we know, there is currently no payment for those pledging property but this is an issue that is being actively considered by the Government at the moment. Beneficiaries of the temporary protection directive are, as we know, in receipt of assistance from the Department of Social Protection, such as the supplementary welfare allowance and child benefit. Pledges have a role to play in supplementing other short-term accommodation and my Department will continue to support the Irish Red Cross and implementing partners to give effect the pledges we can.

All in all, as a country we have responded well to the call to support the effort in easing the burden of relocating to Ireland from Ukraine. We all hope for an end to this war as quickly as possible but in the meantime we will continue to play our part. It has not been easy to scale up the level of services in a short period. I again acknowledge that not everything we have done is perfect but it is evolving and getting better. From speaking to Ukrainians, I know of their gratitude for the support the State and especially communities across the country have shown. I conclude by again thanking those communities, the people and all the State agencies and NGOs that have done so much to support people in such desperate need.

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