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

I thank the Deputy. He knows that the desire to look after everybody, irrespective of race, colour or creed, is shared by the Government as well. I am absolutely happy to engage with the Deputy and if there are difficulties, he knows where to find me. He can come have a word. As I stated, the community fora are up and running in counties all over the country and they are a good place to bring together the various statutory agencies.

The Deputy commented about this being all about money. We should remember that in the first instance, it is about providing security and shelter to Ukrainians. In this country we already have an undersupply of housing and we all acknowledge there is a housing crisis. In providing security and shelter to Ukrainians, we cannot rely on existing housing stock and we have had to go to short-term accommodation. We did that conscious that we did not want our response to Ukrainians to in any way interfere with the Government's existing response to the housing crisis. There is a cost to that but we recognise that will be a short-term cost. It may be for a year or perhaps two or three years but it will not be an ongoing cost. It is the best way so we do not put sectors of the community in conflict with each other. It is the right way to go.

As a consequence of all of this, I have always said that our response here is imperfect. This is a wartime issue and we are in the very lucky position that the bombs and shells are not falling in our country. It is nonetheless a major war closer to us than any of us have ever expected in our lifetimes. It will have an impact on every European country, including on what this Government can do in its focus. We must respond because we can see how people are dying every day in Kharkiv and other major Ukrainian cities. Our response to this, imperfect as it is, is nevertheless a recognition that people still feel safer here than they do in their own country, which is a terrible tragedy. We must support Ukrainians in enduring this for as long as the position remains as it is.

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