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

The war in Ukraine has generated the biggest movement of population on the European continent since the Second World War. It is happening miles from us so sometimes we forget that this is the scale of what we are doing. There are 1.2 million people in Poland, 800,000 people in Romania and Hungary and 450,000 people in Czechia. I was recently speaking to the Commissioner from Czechia. It is having a huge impact in Ireland. Ireland's numbers compared to some of these countries are small, at 53,000 at this stage, but we are a smaller country and we have an ongoing housing crisis and it has put us under real pressure.

The Deputy is right about the operation of the pledge process. It was not perfect. It was far from perfect at the start. Right now 4,500 people are being accommodated in properties throughout the country, which is more than 10% of the Ukranian population here. This is a very important support for the State's efforts to meet the needs of Ukrainians.

See this speech in context