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

I thank the Senator for raising this important matter in terms of the operation of the pledge process.

Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine on 24 February, and the activation of the temporary protection directive shortly afterwards, my Department has worked intensively as part of the cross-governmental response to the Ukraine crisis. My Department is focused on the immediate, short-term accommodation needs of those who fled here. To date, 52,000 people have arrived in Ireland from Ukraine of which more than 41,000 people are being accommodated by my Department and we are also accommodating people in the international protection process. All of that creates real challenges in terms of the delivery of accommodation and I think that we are all aware of that.

The Government is committed to delivering a humanitarian response to the needs of people from Ukraine and providing shelter and safety for these individuals. The response by the public has been huge. We have seen that in communities all around the country but we have particularly seen it in the context of the pledge process. Early on we put in place a pledge process with the Irish Red Cross and a very significant number of pledges were made. We have worked closely with a number of implementation partners such as the International Organization for Migration, the Peter McVerry Trust and all 31 local authorities.

I note that there were some initial delays with the pledge process but by and large it has worked well. At this point over 4,500 Ukrainians have been accommodated around the country. More than 10% of the Ukrainians that the State is accommodating are accommodated in accommodation that was pledged.

As Senators will know, earlier this year my Department introduced the €400 recognition payment. The payment is just recognition and gives some support to the families who have either pledged vacant accommodation or rooms within their own home. The payment has been availed of by 3,500 applicants who are hosting over 7,500 Ukrainians. Again, we made the payment open not just to those who had gone through the official pledge process but those who brought Ukrainians into their homes through other channels.

Obviously we would hope that at the end of a six-month pledge period a family would look to extend the period and we would look to support that. However, that may not always be possible. Where an arrangement comes to an end the implementation partners, whom I referenced earlier, will work with the Ukrainian beneficiaries and the local authorities to seek alternative pledged accommodation. Where this is not possible then the beneficiaries will have to return to our transit hub in Citywest for the allocation of suitable alternative State-sourced accommodation. We will try to do what the Senator said is the preferred option, which is to locate people somewhere local but we can make no commitments to do that.

I have to be very upfront in terms of the difficulties being experienced and pressures on my Department. What happened yesterday in Killarney is another example of that very real and immediate pressure that the Department is under to provide accommodation. We cannot give guarantees but we will always do our best. This morning, we were able to find a solution for the Killarney situation but there is no guarantee that a solution can be found for every situation. That reflects the unprecedented scale of this crisis and the uncertainty because in the last month the number of Ukrainians arriving has doubled from 700 a week at the start of September to 1,500 a week, which puts real pressure on international protection. We are operating to try and move people into alternative pledged accommodation where their pledged accommodation has come to an end or to extend the pledges. We will do our best but we cannot give guarantees.

I take the point the Senator made about communication and communication is important. We can do better in terms of communication on the Department side.