Maria Byrne (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome two good news stories for Limerick and the mid-west. One relates to the €10 million investment by Ryanair in hangar 5 at the airport, where 200 high-end jobs are to be created. This investment relates to servicing Ryanair's aircraft. By 2026, the airline will have many more aircraft in the air so there will be a significant increase in the number of jobs created, these being based at Shannon.

The other good news story relates to yesterday's announcement by the Minister, Deputy Foley, of a €19 million school project for Limerick Educate Together Secondary School. This school will be based in Castletroy. I welcome that and wish the principal, the staff, the students and the families associated with the school all the best because I know they have been waiting for a while. I hope they will be entering their new school in 2023.

I ask for the Leader's intervention with the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth in respect of a group of Ukrainians. Recently, 15 Ukrainians were moved from the Castle Oaks House Hotel in Castleconnell, Limerick, with one day's notice. Four of these had taken up employment locally, two had jobs pending and a number of them had children enrolled or started in local schools. They had settled into the community well. A number of the residents, including Emer O'Donnell, had been co-ordinating with them and helping them to settle into the community. They were given a day's notice that they were leaving and are now living in four cramped apartments in Temple Bar. It is fine to be moved from Castleconnell to Dublin but some of these people are now sleeping on couches when they had a bed where they were.

I understand the hotel was willing to keep them so I really do not know what has happened. Contact was made with the Department, which says that it cannot comment on individual cases. It just does not seem right that they were moved so quickly and moved away from fine accommodation and a settled community. They are now really at sea and, as it will take a couple of weeks for their social welfare payments to be transferred to Dublin, they will have to continue to come to Limerick to collect their payments.