According to Minister of State Patrick O’Donovan, the first of 500 modular houses for Ukrainian refugees will be completed by the beginning of the new year.
Speaking on RTÉ’s The Week in Politics, O’Donovan said all government departments have been involved in the state’s response to Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion and that work has begun on the first 500 modular homes.
“We hope to see the completion of the first of these houses in the first months, January and February, of 2023 which is on schedule from the original plan,” he said, reports RTE.
Mr. O’Donovan said that the Office of Public Works had signed the first contract with a main contractor and that the government had ordered an additional 250 homes from subcontractors.
He added that OPW condensed what is often a “convoluted” planning and procurement process into one that was “sharp.”
The modular homes will not be built exclusively in army barracks across the country, but on land from various sources, he said.
“They’ll be on sites that have been provided by various public bodies including the Office of Public Works, local authorities, the HSE, the Department of Defence and others,” Mr O’Donovan said, reports RTE.
Sinn Féin spokeswoman for children and Carlow-Kilkenny TD Kathleen Funchion criticized the government’s handling of the housing crisis facing refugees arriving here from Ukraine.
Speaking about the same programme, Ms. Funchion said that the government should look at proposals from NGOs to help ease the pressure on the system.
“We’re nearly coming up on a year later and at this stage there is very poor planning, if any planning, by Government,” she said, reports RTE.
“There has been some really good recommendations, for example, from the Irish Refugee Council in relation to 60,000 vacant holiday homes looking at if a deal can be done with people who own those homes,” Ms Funchion added, reported RTE.
The Carlow-Kilkenny TD said other government departments should also work to resolve the problem, arguing it was unfair that all the work was left to the Children’s Department and Minister Roderic O’Gorman.
Ms Funchion also condemned a social media post by a Sinn Féin councilor criticizing Ukrainian refugees housed in her constituency.
“Those comments are absolutely appalling, they shouldn’t have happened, and I believe he has been asked to remove that post. I don’t stand over those comments in any way, shape or form and they are totally unacceptable,” she added, reported RTE.
Sinn Féin called the comments by its housing spokesperson, Eoin Ó Broin, “completely inappropriate” and not reflecting the party’s point of view.
Last month, Ó Broin told a festival in Roscommon that a senior Finance Department official, John McCarthy, should be sacked.
In a statement last night, Dublin Mid-West TD said his comments were “ill judged” and “off the cuff”.
Speaking today on RTÉ’s The Week In Politics, Sinn Féin’s spokeswoman for children, Kathleen Funchion, said the original comments were “dead wrong” and not the party’s position.
She was pressed by Mr Ó Broin’s statement last night when she said that she still does not believe that Mr McCarthy should inform the government’s housing policy.
MP Funchion replied: “I’m just setting out what the Sinn Féin position is – and it’s not that,” reported RTE.
She added that there was a “very clear difference” between ministers and officials.
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