The horrors being unleashed by Putin’s regime in Ukraine are grotesque and we would all agree they are totally inhumane. The suffering of the Ukrainian people is increasing with every passing day as Putin’s campaign of terror intensifies. We also agree that the unprecedented exodus of refugees from Ukraine demands an unprecedented response by this State. It is being reported that up to 200,000 refugees, and potentially even more, could ultimately seek safety in Ireland. That is a number that would pose truly unprecedented challenges. While we must do everything we can to ensure we can help as many people as possible, it is important that detailed and clear plans are put in place to enable us to do so. I fully acknowledge that the situation is fast-moving and in flux but I hope the Tánaiste is in a position to update the House on some of those preparatory plans and I have a number of questions in that regard.

Is a single Government Department and a single Minister going to lead on the national response? Numerous Government Departments will clearly be involved so will there be a cross-departmental task force established to co-ordinate the overarching Government response? Responses in local areas are terrific but they must be also co-ordinated to ensure refugees are receiving the necessary treatment services and entitlements and that these are similar, regardless of in what part of the country they are housed. For example, the Community Call initiative linked local and national government with the community and voluntary sectors and it provided an effective network. It worked extremely well during Covid. Will that be revived to streamline local responses?

I commend the generosity of the tens of thousands of Irish people who have volunteered to house refugees but a huge amount of additional supply will be required. Today’s edition of the Irish Examiner has reported that a nationwide sweep of vacant houses is being undertaken, with estate agents being asked to identify units. While I regret that such a proactive approach to identifying vacant housing was not taken previously, I welcome that the Government is finally acting in this regard. It is reported that owners of hotels, bed and breakfast accommodation, community centres and properties of religious orders are also being approached. Can the Tánaiste advise the House how many rooms or properties the State is attempting to acquire? It is also being reported that emergency planning powers will be used to provide emergency accommodation. Can the Tánaiste advise if locations for this emergency accommodation have been identified and the nature of the accommodation envisaged? For example, will it be modular housing or some other type of emergency housing?

As of this morning, more than 10,000 Ukrainians had arrived in Ireland and registered for international protection. We expect that number will rise to 20,000 by the end of the month. It is reasonable to assume that figure will probably hit approximately 40,000 by the end of next month, although nobody can know for sure. What we are seeing is effectively a 1% increase in our population in the course of a few weeks. That is going to have serious impacts on education, healthcare, housing, social protection, the public finances and even on things like greenhouse gas emissions. Absolutely all calculations change when the population increases by 1% or 2% in the course of a few weeks.

To put this in context, when homelessness was at its worst, we had about 10,000 people in emergency accommodation. We have approximately 7,000 people in direct provision at present. We now have 10,000 Ukrainians seeking international protection. That figure will probably be 20,000 by the end of the month and 40,000 by the end of the following month. This is the scale of the crisis we are dealing with. I need to be honest with the House and the Irish people: it will not be possible to provide what we would like to provide, namely, self-catering, own-door accommodation for everyone in the space of a few weeks or even a few months. This will be a very difficult crisis to deal with. Every country in Europe will be in the same boat in having to provide as good accommodation as we possibly can given the circumstances.

The response is being led by the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman, and involves a number of Departments including the Departments of Education, Social Protection, Justice, Foreign Affairs and Health. There is a cross-Government group that involves almost every Department.

In terms of hotels, so far we had managed to retain 2,260 rooms as of 19 March for 4,341 people. County councils have in the region of 1,800 emergency beds that they can mobilise. Large venues are being identified, including the Green Glens Arena in Millstreet, Citywest, and Gormanston. The latter is owned by the Defence Forces and accommodation will be provided there, although, unfortunately, it will be very basic accommodation. We have approximately 20,000 pledges from members of the public who are offering to provide accommodation. That effort is being led by the Irish Red Cross. Of these 20,000 pledges, and we are very grateful to the public for its generosity in making those pledges, 4,000 are for independent own-door units or vacant properties. They are being assessed and we hope to bring them into use as soon as possible. That is the priority. After that, we will move on to people who can offer a spare room, particularly those with access to public transport.

That is the response we are dealing with at the moment. It is an enormous crisis. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Coveney, was in Poland a few days ago and he will tell Deputies what he experienced. Entire conference and exhibition centres there are being used to accommodate millions of refugees. The scale of what we are going to have to deal with is unprecedented in our experience, but it will not be on the scale of what other European countries are experiencing. We will just have to do our best in the coming weeks, be as generous as we can and provide as good a standard of accommodation as we can. However, we have to be honest and realistic about what is going to be possible and what is not.

We all accept that the scale of this is absolutely unprecedented. It is very difficult to comprehend the nature and scale of the response that will be required. I am glad to hear about the cross-Government group that has been set up. I would like the Tánaiste to answer the question about the co-ordination of the local response and whether consideration have been given to reviving the Community Call network that was so effective. It has been reported that the Covid contingency fund of approximately €3.5 billion may be used to fund the response to this humanitarian crisis. Can the Tánaiste confirm if any decisions have been made in that regard, about short-term and medium-term funding?

I have been informed by the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Humphreys, that the Community Call initiative will be reactivated, as suggested by the Deputy, to mobilise the generosity and capacity of the nation to help with this enormous international crisis.

Consideration is being given to using section 181(2) of the Planning and Development Act 2000, which confers emergency powers. However, when we tried modular housing before, it was not the solution people make it out to be. If it was all that easy to build houses that quickly, we would have done it a long time ago. We need to be realistic about what can be achieved.

Before you build modular housing, you need a serviced site and as people know, we have a shortage of serviced sites in the country. That requires roads, power cables and water, all of which takes not months but years. That is, unfortunately, the position we are in at the moment. I am sorry; the Deputy had another question.

I asked about the Covid contingency funding.

We have set aside funding for the Covid-19 contingency. The pandemic is not over yet, so we may need that money for Covid-19. We are not yet in a position to dedicate that to this response. We need also to bear in mind that was to be a one-off spend for this year. I expect whatever we will have to do to help Ukrainians will be a recurring spend for a number of years because tens of thousands of Ukrainians will be with us for a long time, if not indefinitely. We will have to do a budget assessment of that, which is under way.