Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

My time is relatively short. There might not be consensus emerging across the House, but I think everybody in the House seems to agree with the broad thrust of where we are going in terms of the provision of housing for Ukrainians. There is increased unanimity on the view that we must tackle vacancy. Points have been made about dereliction, which we are further away from tackling, and bringing properties back into usage. My colleague, Deputy Matthews, has some very interesting ideas around that. I know that the Minister has engaged with him. I want to use my time to drill down into a few specific issues. There has been much praise for the response of local authorities. That is very much deserved. From engaging with my own local authority officials, I know that they are responding first, and worrying about costs later. They are spending the money now in the expectation that they will recoup it from central government. Of course, there should be oversight of spending and we should always try to ensure value for money for the taxpayer. However, it is important that we give that commitment to local government that the money that they spend will be recouped.

As we had to have an emergency response in accommodation, we are housing people in emergency centres and hotels. As we move towards a more medium-term solution, however, I strongly believe we have to consider the layering up of services. Accommodation and housing are central but on top of that we have to look at education provision, the availability of employment, social protection services and transport provision.

While IPAS is the lead agency in providing accommodation, I have heard estimates that between one quarter and one third of Ukrainians are staying with family members. That means the local authorities do not really have sight of these people and do not have a role in providing accommodation for them in the long term. Policy should never be done because of specific examples but I have heard specific examples of people arriving with complex needs for whom it is difficult. The accommodation provision they have is not suitable. For example, I am aware of a child in a school who is autistic and is finding it hard to deal with the dislocation and trauma of the move. That must be extremely difficult and it must be amplified when that family is in a hotel room and must go back to that constricted and confined space. As we move to that medium-term solution, we need to look at the basket of services that we need to apply. They have to follow housing but we also have to think about the other services we provide.

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