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

I thank the Senator for raising this extremely important matter, which is close to my heart. We emphasised this matter when we brought forward the White Paper to end direct provision in February of last year. I will outline some of the achievements that have been made since the White Paper was published. We created a unit within my Department to implement the White Paper. We established some governance structures. We brought in a programme board which included officials from other Departments, expertise from the private sphere, former residents of direct provision and people who are involved in NGOs to get their expert views and advice on how to develop the new system. We also created an external advisory group, chaired by Dr. Catherine Day, who has been so important in the work she has done on direct provision and many other areas.

Since then, we have been developing a community accommodation model and looking at the development of an ownership model that could be used by approved housing bodies, so that they could bid for funding to develop housing in the community for international protection applicants. We have had a great deal of assistance from the Housing Agency on the delivery of that. We have advanced the development of an integration programme to support the principle of integration from day one, which is central to the White Paper. We have initiated a planning process for phase 1 reception and integration centres. In August of this year, we launched a new integration fund, offering grants to civil society organisations for projects supporting the integration of international protection applicants. The awards will be announced in the coming weeks.

Senator Flynn is absolutely right when she says that the Ukraine crisis has posed a huge challenge to what we were trying to do. Indeed, it poses a big challenge to much of what my Department is doing generally. We have had to create a unit of 100 people in my Department, from nowhere, to respond to the needs of Ukraine. As Senators know, some 54,000 Ukrainians have arrived in the country, of whom my Department is housing 44,000. We are also housing 16,000 international protection applicants. That is a huge jump on last year's number when we housed 7,500 people. That has created huge challenges, such as the need to strip teams, including the White Paper team, many of whom have had to move over to the Ukraine response. They were very much involved in City West. I have prioritised the moving of people back to their original work. I prioritised the White Paper team so that some of them are now back to focus on the White Paper.

It is going to be very difficult to achieve the target of having everyone out of direct provision by the end of 2024 in terms of the accommodation element. I have to be honest about that. The landscape has changed absolutely in the context of 7,500 people last year as opposed to 60,000 people this year.

However, the White Paper was not just about accommodation. Accommodation is central but integration and services were also key elements of the White Paper. I am looking to bring those forward. In regard to accommodation, I want to increase the State-owned capacity to accommodate people in international protection so that the reception and integration centres, those initial centres where people would be able to get own-door accommodation or singles would be able to get own-room accommodation, will be prioritised. We might build some or we may acquire some. We may acquire some existing buildings or residential accommodation or something like that in terms of accommodation. Regarding the two other elements, HIQA will soon be inspecting direct provision centres. It is important that this monitoring role is being on by an organisation as recognised as HIQA. Vulnerability assessments were not being done prior to my time as Minister but they are being done now in respect of all new international protection applicants.

My Department will be funding integration officers in every local authority to assist people in international protection in engaging with services, education and training. The community fund will be broadened out further to support NGOs and smaller scale community groups that are actively helping to integrate into the wider community international protection applicants living in their respective areas.