County Clare has played a major role in welcoming Ukrainian refugees and international protection refugees. According to the recent census, 3% of the population of the county are from refugee countries. They have come in and they have been warmly accepted and received. A major problem, however, is that the international protection accommodation services body, IPAS, which is co-ordinating all of this, is not picking up the bills. Some hotels in County Clare are owed moneys going back as far as October or November. Yesterday, a hotel had its water mains shut off by Irish Water because it had not paid bills for several months. These are bills that are to be paid by IPAS and the Government. It is inexplicable that they would not be paid. It will force many of these hoteliers out of the accommodation provision market. We need to pay these bills urgently. I estimate there is approximately €2.5 million owed to hoteliers in County Clare for accommodating refugees for many months. The bills are not being paid and the hoteliers are floundering. The cost to them of providing electricity, water and everything else is rising. We need someone to sign off on these cheques and pay the people what they are owed so that accommodation can continue.

I am aware of the specific instance raised by the Deputy. The hotel in question received a substantial payment last week and we are looking into measures that can be taken to complete other elements of the payment the hotel is owed. My Department has processed a significant number of payments. We are paying €30 million to €35 million per week at present but I recognise that we are still working through a backlog. The amount we are paying per week is increasing significantly. We have taken on a significant number of extra staff from within my Department and we have also contracted in a significant number of additional staff so that we can continue to grow the amount we are paying per week. We will follow up further on the specific instance raised by the Deputy.