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

An extension of a further six months provides very real certainty to Ukrainians and provides certainty to my Department. We are seeing situations where pledges have ended and people have had to go to Citywest thus requiring us to find new accommodation for them. We will find new accommodation for people but such movement adds to the pressures on the Department. I will certainly look for my pledge team to place some of its focus on the renewal of pledges while at the same time look to develop further pledges.

In terms of Killarney, the key point is that we seek two types of accommodation at all times - accommodation for Ukrainians and accommodation for international protection. It is incredibly difficult to source accommodation for international protection. We had to avail of the opportunity at the hotel in Killarney because we all saw what happened when we did not secure enough accommodation and international protection applicants ended up sleeping rough on our streets.This is a situation I wish to avoid repeating but I cannot give that guarantee because the housing situation is so incredibly tight right now. This is the vista I am looking at. It is for this reason and this reason alone that the Department proposed to move the Ukrainians from Killarney to Westport. In this situation we have been able to find alternative accommodation in Killarney for them and they will be moved there shortly.