I am delighted the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O’Gorman, is present. I have previously raised in the Dáil with the Taoiseach the issue of moneys outstanding to hotels, bed and breakfasts and guesthouses who are accommodating Ukrainians and refugees. There are a number of them in my own constituency and these people are in serious financial need. There are outstanding moneys going back three and four months, when their mortgages, loans, food supplies, electricity, heating, staff and refurbishment costs are all outstanding and their credit ratings are on the line. I plead with the Minister, Deputy O’Gorman, to speak to the Secretary General at his Department on this issue so that it can be sorted as soon as possible. The Government should not be letting these people down. They rose to the challenge, and they are providing a fantastic service-----

I thank the Deputy.

I ask the Minister to talk to the Secretary General at his Department on this issue.

I thank the Deputy and I know that he has been contact with my Department and directly with me about some local providers. We have over the last number of months started over 650 individual contracts with hotels, guesthouses and bed and breakfasts. We have needed to upscale our ability to deal with that number of contracts. When the Deputy and others have asked, I have had additional resources transferred within my Department to specifically resource getting invoices out and paid. That has been done. We are working through a backlog and we have made significant progress. I believe in the next two or three weeks we will be fully caught up. I thank the Deputy again for raising the issue, which I will discuss again with the Secretary General to make sure we are doing all we can to get people paid as promptly as possible.