Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)

Fair enough. Like the Cathaoirleach, I welcome the distinguished guests from the Procedure Committee of the House of Commons. You are all very welcome to the Upper House of the Irish Parliament.

The Cathaoirleach will be aware that the motion before the Seanad in effect seeks a resolution concerning the accommodation recognition payment. In short, I am asking the Seanad to approve a reduction in the payment of the accommodation recognition payment from €800 to €600. Senators will be aware that, in 2022, the Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2022 was enacted. The first part dealt with the issues that had arisen as a result of the illegal invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Regrettably, that war is still ongoing and, as a result, it is still necessary for us to provide Ukrainians who have fled Ukraine with the status of being a beneficiary of temporary protection. As the House knows - this may be of interest to our colleagues from the United Kingdom - since the war started in Ukraine, approximately 117,000 Ukrainians have come to Ireland. We did our best to provide them with shelter and accommodation. It was a difficult task considering the accommodation issues we faced in our country. I do not think there would be much disagreement from any part of this House that there was a very strong and generous response to the crisis by the Irish people and their elected representatives.

In order to try to overcome the difficulty of identifying accommodation, section 9 of the 2022 Act designated what would be provided as a payment known as an accommodation recognition payment. The purpose of this payment was to give recognition and some small financial contribution, recognising the charitable contribution of many Irish people who had provided Ukrainians with accommodation. Of course, this was not in any way a tenancy agreement. In many cases, it was people who had holiday homes who decided to provide those homes for the benefit of Ukrainian people who had fled the war.

The specific terms within the legislation stated that the sum of €400 would be paid to the person who owned the property if he or she took in beneficiaries of temporary protection, namely, Ukrainians. The benefit and consequence of this was that people would only receive one payment per accommodation unit. Even if someone took in four beneficiaries of temporary protection - Ukrainians, as I will call them from now on - instead of one, the person would still only receive €400. It was not dependent on the number of people taken in. If the Government wanted to increase the payment, section 9 allowed us to do so through an order made by the relevant Minister, which at that time was the Minister for children. However, for an order for an increase or decrease in payment to be effective, we would have to pass resolutions in both Houses of the Oireachtas. The purpose of the statutory scheme that facilitated increases or decreases in the payments was that it would enable the Houses of the Oireachtas to have a supervisory role and to have input in respect of the payment. This is what we are doing today.

Members will be aware that, approximately a year after we introduced the €400 payment, the then Minister for children came back before the Houses of the Oireachtas and said that he wanted to increase the payment from €400 to €800. This was agreed to by the Dáil and the Seanad.What I am doing today and what has been mooted and indicated by Government previously is that we believe now we should reduce the payment, reducing it from €800, as I indicated previously, to €600. I thank the Members of the Seanad for meeting today to discuss this motion concerning the order I propose to make to reduce the monthly financial contribution for hosts of temporary protection beneficiaries from Ukraine under the accommodation recognition payment scheme. As Senators are aware, the Act I have identified requires us to look at the change and resolutions that are put before the Houses of Oireachtas. As Senators will also be aware, in March this year, the draft order under consideration proposing a reduction from €800 to €600 was announced. If this resolution is approved by this House and Dáil Éireann, it will have effect from 1 June. In practical terms, it will mean that the people who are receiving payments for hosting Ukrainians will have their payments reduced in July by the Department of Social Protection. My colleague, the Minister, Deputy Foley, has already sought and received the consent of the Minister for Social Protection and the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform. She also consulted me in respect of it.

The scheme was introduced in 2022 and was increased to €800 on 1 December 2022, recognising the challenge the State faced at the time in respect of ensuring we provided accommodation for Ukrainians. From the launch of the ARP scheme in July 2022 to date, 23,900 hosts have availed of the contribution in respect of 54,500 beneficiaries. In March this year, when the extension of the scheme was being considered in this House, many Members reflected on the many positive aspects of the scheme. They acknowledged it as an innovative measure which has generated emergency accommodation out of largely unused housing stock. The scheme tapped into the generosity of the Irish people. As of 18 May 2025, more than 38,700 were being hosted under the scheme. This now exceeds the number in State procured accommodation, which is 24,100. Notwithstanding the success of the scheme, there must come a time when it is going to be reduced, and there will definitely come a time when the payment is going to be removed completely.

A number of concerns were raised by Senators in this House in March regarding the potential impact of the scheme on the private rental market. That is part of the reason we are proposing to reduce the payment from €800 to €600. The reduction seeks to mitigate any unintended impact of the ARP on the private rental sector. While there are no definitive findings of any impact, I am mindful of the concerns expressed by Senators and Deputies, and I hope the reduction will go some way towards alleviating those concerns. We have a lot of data on the ARP which undertakes and provides an assessment on the impact in respect of housing. For example, a property that is RTB registered might also fall within the remit of the ARP, as a tenant may apply for ARP subject to the consent of the property owner and other tenants. There are also likely to be cases of RTB property registrations which were terminated for a range of reasons, such as sale of property or change of use, in respect of which an applicant is in receipt of the accommodation recognition payment.

It is an important decision we have made to reduce the payment. It is not being reduced back to €400. We are going from €800 to €600. It is a sensible thing to do at this stage, but obviously I will listen carefully to the contributions of Senators.