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

I welcome the fact that this motion has been brought to the House today. Its passage will bring clarity and certainty to the 37,000 Ukrainians who are currently in homes supported by the accommodation recognition payment, ARP, and the thousands of Irish people who have provided them with accommodation. It is worth recalling that the ARP was conceived at a time of extreme crisis, when thousands of people were arriving in Dublin Airport every week, including men, women, children, the elderly and people with disabilities. All of them needed a place to stay that night and for the months and years that followed. At that time, every single lever available needed to be pulled and pulled rapidly.

Deputies will no doubt recall the pledge process. It did not immediately get off the ground smoothly. During that extreme crisis period, the administrative challenges were immense. However, the State recognised that there was a readily available supply of spare rooms, holiday homes and granny flats, the vast majority of which would not normally be part of rental supply, nor would they ever be. The State knew that we could, and should, activate this to provide the critical emergency shelter. Now, largely thanks to the ARP, pledged accommodation accounts for the largest cohort of Ukrainian accommodation in the country. Some 37,000 people still reside in ARP-supported homes. This is by some degree the most successful example of this type of scheme in Europe. It is actually held up as an exemplar by the International Red Cross.

As Minister at the time overseeing the needs of Ukrainians fleeing the war, I recall meeting the Scottish Government Minister tasked with deploying Scotland's version of the pledged-homes process. They had enormous difficulties setting up their version of the scheme, known as Homes for Ukraine. Ultimately, Scotland ended up hosting a far smaller number of people than we were able to achieve. We quite simply could not have provided the humanitarian operation that we did as a country without the ARP.

There was always going to be a time when the ARP would need to be tailed off and the Government is beginning that process today. Now that today's decision has been made, the most critical thing the Government needs to do is to devise and implement a clear plan for what we do once the temporary protection directive expires in a year's time. That cannot wait until one week before the deadline, as happened in this year's situation. We do not know if the war in Ukraine will be ongoing next year. Even if there is a ceasefire, there may be large parts of the country that remain under occupation. We should be supporting Ukrainians to return home, to begin the work of rebuilding their country, when and where it is safe to do so.

However, it is likely that many Ukrainians will want to stay and we need to provide them with clarity. There needs to be a transition plan. Suggestions that we direct them to the international protection process would be a disaster. That system is already under enormous capacity pressure and is massively overstretched. Obviously, the approach after the temporary protection directive needs to be co-ordinated at EU level. It is clear that many thousands of Ukrainians will receive some form of status in EU countries. We must prepare for that day and we must provide supports to allow those who stay to live and work independently.

See this speech in context