Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge the huge welcome and solidarity shown in communities across Ireland to those who have come to our shores seeking refuge. The Taoiseach has given the figures. We are all conscious of the enormous welcome and warmth there is. What is lacking is a strong co-ordinated response from the Government, particularly to the accommodation of refugees and those seeking international protection. We in the Labour Party and across the Opposition, as well as in the Ukraine civil society forum, have consistently called for stronger co-ordination and more support from other Departments for the Department of the Minister, Deputy O’Gorman, than appears to be the case currently and, in particular, for the appointment of a dedicated junior Minister with responsibility for the housing of refugees and those seeking protection.

We need a point person, which we have pointed out on numerous occasions. I have consistently raised the need for us to have a point person who will co-ordinate information to public representatives and to whom we can furnish information on large vacant buildings. In my constituency, the offers we suggested of Baggot Street Hospital and the empty Jurys hotel at Ballsbridge, which has more than 400 rooms, are simply going into the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. There is no sense that there is any one co-ordinated point that will follow up on these offers. We hear that the International Protection Accommodation Services, IPAS, is under-resourced and simply does not have the capacity to take up offers of accommodation that have been made to it. That is very serious.

We also need to see a co-ordinated national information campaign from the Government. We are seeing very worrying signs of mobilisation by the far right and the exploitation of an information vacuum by a small number of sinister actors in spreading disinformation and then protests and intimidation. We need to see a national information campaign similar to that rolled out during Covid-19 to counter the myths that are spreading.

Finally, I ask the Taoiseach to take on the social media companies because their platforms are allowing misinformation to spread. They are facilitating, in some cases, violent and intimidatory protests and, indeed, attacks on public representatives. Is the Taoiseach planning to meet with Facebook, TikTok, Twitter and others about this spread of disinformation?

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