Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his presence. We know there is a crisis but I do not know how many times I have come into this Chamber and said that we are reactive more than proactive. Since I represent east Cork, I will specifically stick to east Cork when it comes to Ukrainian families. I do not like to call them refugees because they are not refugees. It is a war-torn conflict, but they are families.

My issue is that I have conflicting reports from volunteers and hotel owners about how these families are being treated. I have heard rumours of four different families being put into one holiday home. I do not know where issues like health and safety and children’s rights are coming into that.

I need to know if any Department, including the Minister’s, has a go-between for me, as a public representative, to go to east Cork and say that I need to meet Mr. or Mrs. X on behalf of concerned local people, Ukrainian families or hotel owners and to whom I can address the issues. We know it is all about the spondulicks. It is all about the money, which is a big issue. We are starting to pit local communities against each other.

There is also an issue where, specifically looking at the likes of Youghal, which is a tourist town, the hotels have been fully booked because of the iron man race coming up and it has caused much conflict. While I understand there is another conflict in Ukraine, there are other locations such as St. Raphael’s Centre, Youghal, which is HSE-owned, so basically Government-owned, and therefore does not cost anything to put families into.

The biggest concern I have from what I am hearing on the ground is period poverty, because many of these people are mothers with children. I have talked to volunteers who are running shops and their biggest outgoing is soaps and shower gels. I cannot get clarity on who is supposed to supply all of these. Obviously, mental health has not been mentioned and all of these families are traumatised. Again, transport is an issue. Many of these are outside Youghal in Redbarn, which I think is about 8 km outside. There is no mention of transport to get the kids into school or get families into shops to even get clothes. The list is endless.

I raise these points because the people who are coming to me are extremely frustrated. I also am extremely frustrated because I am only taking the word of mouth of hotel owners, guest owners or people on the street and I need clarity. I need to be able to go back and say, for example, that from next week or the following week, a Department will have put in place a liaison officer that I, as a public representative and others can approach and raise these issues with and ask whether they have been addressed. I did not want to bring it up here; I do so out of pure frustration. We hear all of the great things that are happening outside of this House but when you go out and see the devil in the detail, many of these people are being mistreated. I cannot even get answers to or proof of what is actually happening to these families.

Finally, there are great volunteers and a fabulous community who have supplied everything from clothing to knitting needles, toiletries, as I mentioned, and pots and pans. Who is responsible for all of these? I find it ironic that people staying in a hotel have to look for soap to wash themselves. Is there a possibility of getting some liaison officer from the Department that others and I can work with in east Cork to get the answers for all the concerned people?

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