First, I convey my thanks and congratulations to Noel Murphy and wish him and his family the very best for the future.

I acknowledge the unprecedented effort that has been made over the past 13 months or so in accommodating refugees fleeing the atrocious war in Ukraine.

Tens of thousands of people have been accommodated here. I have been asked by a number of accommodation providers in my constituency to again highlight the fact that those providing accommodation for Ukrainian refugees are not being paid. This has resulted in a number of providers having their credit ratings affected. The overheads have increased significantly, yet the financial compensation is not coming in to help to pay the bills. Will the Tánaiste and the Minister redouble their efforts to address this problem?

We discussed this issue ourselves yesterday. I recognise that there are delays and that these delays are ongoing. There is a backlog. In order to address that backlog, we have taken a number of steps within the Department to automate the processing of the significant number of invoices on hand. About 800 invoices come in on a weekly basis. Most importantly, additional staff are being put in place to address this issue. Within my Department, 13 staff have been reallocated. There are also five additional staff from an outside provider and a further four from Pobal. That is making a difference. In February ,we paid out €56 million in respect of invoices received. To date in March we have paid out €120 million. The amount we have paid out this month is more than double that paid out last month. We will continue to prioritise this matter. Sometimes, the reallocation of staff will mean putting work in other parts of the Department on hold, but we will do that because we acknowledge the importance of supporting the hoteliers who have given us so much support.