The Department of Integration said it recently paid 30 million euros a week to house people from Ukraine and is focusing on paying accommodation providers facing financial difficulties.
The Department will tell the Oireachtas Committee today that accommodation providers were understandably frustrated by the delay in payment.
The government has spent €976 million on shelter and related costs in Ukraine since the Russian invasion in 2022, reports RTE.
The Department of Integration has provided housing for over 61,000 people from Ukraine in the last 14 months.
The finance minister said that the cost of housing refugees from Ukraine had been foreseen and taken care of.
“It is what we call non-core expenditure. So, it is temporary in that sense, though of course, there will still need to be provision again for next year because tragically the war shows no sign of ending and we have international obligations which we will fully honour,” Michael McGrath said, as he arrived for today’s Cabinet meeting, reports RTE.
“I haven’t been paid for February, March or April and I’m supposed to be paid a month in advance for May,” a hotelier accommodating Ukrainian refugees in Leinster told RTÉ News.
An accountant who spoke to RTÉ News has three clients providing accommodation to Ukrainian Beneficiaries of Temporary Protection.
“It has absolutely not improved one bit since the scheme started… not one iota. It takes just as long if not longer to get purchase orders and then to get the invoice passed, and when the invoice is passed it just seems to sit their forever and a day before you get payment, and you are constantly sending emails and reminders, getting clients to send emails… and eventually you do get paid, but always it’s way, way late,” he said, reports RTE.
A hotelier in Connacht told RTÉ News that several months’ bills owed to him were paid “only a few days ago” but two months’ worth of payments are still outstanding.
“Nobody seems to know what’s going on, it’s like they don’t seem to have the information in front of them, and then when you deal with somebody new, you start all over again,” he said, reports RTE.
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