Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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991. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if he will ensure that a hotel accommodating Ukrainian refugees (details supplied) immediately receives the outstanding amounts owed. [14002/23]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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My Department has engaged over 750 properties to provide accommodation for Ukrainian Beneficiaries of Temporary Protection. In line with the Department’s commitment to substantially clear the backlog at the end of 2022, I temporarily re-assigned staff from other parts of the Department in December, doubling the size of the payments unit. The enlarged team approved more than 100 million euros worth of payments.

My Department is prioritising maintaining a practice of more timely payments, including providing more resources to address any issues. Any delays in making payments are deeply regretted and my Department is according this issue very high priority.

I am advised by my officials that a payment was made to this Supplier on 09/03/23 and a further payment was made on 15/03/23. Two further invoices have been processed, with payment expected to issue in the coming two weeks, pending final checks.

The delay in payment is due to the large volume of invoices being received by my Department. Additional resources have been assigned within my Department, in addition to outsourcing of some tasks to accelerate processing. The volume of payments issuing is steadily growing. My Department will continue to press on to eliminate the backlog while ensuring appropriate governance is in place to safeguard the proper spending of Exchequer funding.