Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael)
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1251. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth when overdue payments for accommodating Ukrainian refugees will issue to a hotelier (details supplied) in County Kerry; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17424/23]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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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 happy to confirm that, as part of this prioritisation, the older outstanding invoices relating to this property, up to and including January 2023, have been discharged in the past fortnight. My officials are engaging with the provider in relation to the remaining invoices.

The delay in payment was 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.