Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On the war in Ukraine, it is obvious that appeasement has not worked. I have stated my view on that, and I explained it earlier. Of course Ireland argues for de-escalation, but de-escalation requires the aggressor to de-escalate. Ukraine was attacked. Ukraine is partially occupied. There cannot be a de-escalation until the aggressor de-escalates. Ukraine cannot de-escalate. What would that even look like? Would it mean Ukraine stopping the defence of its own cities and citizens? De-escalation has to involve the willingness of the aggressor to de-escalate. We had a very good engagement with the UN Secretary General in Brussels only last week and teased out with him the point at which it might be appropriate to have a UN intervention, for example, an independent intervention into the war in Ukraine. He was very clear that he would not be calling for a ceasefire at this point because he did not think that would be the right approach in light of the current situation on the ground and Russia's position of victory or death. That is the greatest difficulty. I do not think President Putin cares how many million young Russians die in that war. President Zelenskyy does care about how many Ukrainians die in it. He does not want to see Ukrainians left behind enemy lines. He does not want to see the Ukrainian children who have been deported to Russia not returned. That could happen in a ceasefire scenario. All of this needs to be borne in mind.

On refurbishment, we have about 700 buildings we are using at the moment to accommodate people from Ukraine and other parts of the world. We were not using those buildings this time last year. We are refurbishing dozens if not hundreds more buildings, but they cannot all be done at the same time. There will always be some building that is not refurbished, but 700 buildings have been refurbished and 80,000 people were accommodated in the past year. It has been a Herculean effort. I thank everyone who has been involved in it. Had we had the amazing foresight two years ago to know that the war in Ukraine was going to happen and to build a city the size of Waterford that incorporated 20,000 accommodation units, that city would already be full. That is what we have actually achieved - 700 different sites and 80,000 people accommodated. We are going to refurbish more buildings and provide more in the year ahead.

The rapid builds have been approved. We approved between 500 and 700 in the first phase. They should be ready for occupation in the next few weeks. As we learned in the past with modular and rapid builds, they are not so cheap and not so rapid as many of the advocates say. We have to have a site serviced, it has to be ready, we cannot just drop them in a field. We have to order the units, they have to arrive and then we have to get them from the factory to the site. We have to make sure there are no low bridges along the way. If there are, we cannot even get them to the site. As somebody who has been actively involved in making modular builds happen, and they are going to happen, they are not as rapid as people would hope. That is just the reality.

On education, I may need to come back to Deputy Barry with a more detailed reply. I will speak to the Minister for Education about the matter. There are 15,000 children and young people from Ukraine who have been enrolled in 2,000 Irish schools. I thank the teachers, principals, school boards and school communities involved in this regard. They have been phenomenal. It is not a small thing to take in 15,000 children, with very little English in most cases, welcome them into a school and integrate them in the way they have been. I could not admire teachers, principals and school communities more for what they have done to respond to this crisis in the past year. As Deputies will know, through the regional education and language teams, REALT, we are doing the best possible to support children and young people from Ukraine. Teams work with schools, local educational assistance services and national assistance structures. Additional resources have been provided to REALT for the enrolment of Ukrainian pupils and additional REALT resources have been appointed to areas under pressure. REALT has been extended to provide assistance to children under the Irish refugee protection programme to find school places as well. In terms of capacity, the situation is very tight in particular parts of the country. We are continuously assessing the need for additional capacity in schools across the country. The REALT teams are developing an integrated approach to maximising utilisation of existing capacity for mainstream Ukrainian and special needs classroom requirements such as additional accommodation through school building projects and modular accommodation solutions.

On English language provision in schools, there are 960 English and additional language posts. They have been allocated to just under 2,000 primary and post-primary schools that have enrolled children from Ukraine. There are 187 special education teachers and 233 special needs assistants who have also been allocated to schools to help with the response.

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