Along with my Labour colleagues, I condemn outright the horrific attacks that took place in my constituency this weekend with the burning of tents on Sandwith Street and the intimidation of individuals forced to sleep in tents in and around the Mount Street area. I met with these people over the weekend. I met with people who travelled to Ireland to seek refuge and to make a contribution to our society and who instead have been given no choice but to sleep on the streets awaiting the processing of their applications to stay and the allocation of housing from our wealthy State. It is an appalling indictment that we cannot provide them, apparently, with accommodation. I again say that all of us have to show political leadership in condemning the small number of far-right activists who took this brutal action in burning people out of their homes and burning down tents. I went to see the destruction in the burnt-out alleyway off Sandwith Street and the awful scenes that we saw circulated on social media. I absolutely condemn that small number of individuals, who are in no way representative of Irish society, which has shown a great welcome to those who have come here to seek refuge. The attacks are a stain on our society and those responsible must be brought to justice. I have engaged with the local police and I know that investigations are under way.

The circumstances in which people are forced to sleep on the streets while awaiting the processing of applications are also shameful. The Government needs to do more on this. I have repeatedly raised this issue with the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, and I thank him for his engagement with me on this matter over the weekend. Clearly, we need to see increased capacity and the delivery of accommodation at scale for those who come here to seek refuge. I have repeatedly asked for a dedicated Minister for refugee and international protection services. I have called on the Taoiseach to ensure greater co-ordination between Government Departments because there is still a sense that the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth has been left to shoulder almost the entire responsibility for housing those who come here to seek refuge and that other Departments have simply not been willing to assist and support that Department and to provide the necessary accommodation, which we have a duty to provide. Indeed, the High Court recently confirmed that the Government is in breach of our international duties in failing to provide accommodation.

This is even worse because we are a nation of emigrants. For generations, Irish people fled to safer shores and went abroad to find prosperity and peace. We would like to think they were not forced to sleep on the streets in the places they went. I ask the Minister to speak with the Taoiseach to ensure that we restore humanity to our refugee accommodation system.

Furthermore, the arrival of refugees and inward migration to Ireland is a positive thing at a time when the Government consistently cites labour shortages as a causal factor in the chronic housing shortage and undersupply of housing. Many of these people are highly skilled and want to come here and work. They told me on Saturday they just want to work to contribute to our society. Work is always the best way to ensure integration. Will the Minister guarantee that the Government will take a more co-ordinated approach urgently to address the crisis in which people are sleeping on the streets who need to be housed and have the right to work?

I thank the Deputy for raising this. I agree with Deputy Bacik. The scenes in Dublin at the weekend were horrific. Burning people out of their tents are the actions of people who do not represent the vast majority of people in this country. The Deputy was absolutely correct when she said that there is an onus on every single one of us in this House to condemn these actions unreservedly.

The situation we face is unprecedented. More than 100,000 people arrived here from Ukraine and other parts of the world over the last year. These people are fleeing war and bombs falling from the sky and women and children are being blown to pieces; we see it on television. That is what many of these people are leaving behind. When you meet them, they recount their stories and their concerns about the family members they left behind. We have a duty as human beings to try to do our best to help but there are huge challenges. There is no getting away from that because what we face is unprecedented. More than 100,000 people is the equivalent of the entire population of County Kilkenny. It is about trying to find accommodation for all of those people. Have we largely managed to find accommodation? Yes, we have. Has it been perfect? No, it has not. Have there been issues? Yes, of course there have. Like many other countries, we are doing the best we can in very difficult circumstances.

To be clear, there is a cross-government approach to this. A Cabinet committee was specifically set up to deal with issues facing Ukrainians and international protection accommodation seekers. Several Departments feed into it, such as the Department of Defence, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, the Department of Education, the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science and my Department of Social Protection. I want to be very clear that this is a cross-government approach. The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth will bring in significant additional accommodation this week, which will allow offers of accommodation to be made to many of the international protection applicants seeking accommodation. The Ministers, Deputy O'Gorman and Deputy O'Brien, are working with local authorities and Defence Forces and others on housing. We are examining rapid-build homes which could accommodate 2,000 people across 20 sites. The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth is working with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and local authorities in relation to refurbishing buildings and how they can accommodate people. As with housing generally, funding or political will is not the issue. We are pumping billions and billions into housing and doing everything we can to try to alleviate the pressures we currently face.

As the Minister said, it is over a year since the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine. That is over a year in which the Government could and should have pulled together a more coherent, co-ordinated and joined-up response to this crisis. She spoke of a cross-governmental approach but there is no sense of leadership from the Taoiseach on this matter. Instead we heard him seeking to deflect blame, it appears, onto policing and the Garda when this issue is about cross-departmental supports for the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth in supplying housing. I have been pushing for the use of sites in my constituency, such as Jurys Hotel in Ballsbridge, Baggot St. Hospital and empty office buildings that could be scaled up to provide accommodation. The Minister spoke of the Department of Defence. What about the use of empty barracks or empty housing on Department of Defence sites? The Government said in January that there would be 700 modular homes in place for refugee accommodation by Easter, which we have not seen. Where is the sense of urgency and the massive level of State intervention, which was put to such good effect during Covid?

Where is that sense of co-ordination and of support? Where is that leadership, crucially, from the Taoiseach's Department?

We are using barracks in Kilbride, Mullingar and Tralee, so we are certainly using assets that the Department of Defence has.

Not enough.

We are doing everything we can, but the point here is that more people have been coming. There has been a total of 100,000 arrivals in the last year, which is a lot of people. We have been working and dealing with this issue, but as the Deputy well knows, we need more accommodation and we are doing everything to achieve this.

Almost 30,000 new homes were built in 2022, including almost 7,500 social homes or new builds, more than in any year in the last half century. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, updated the Cabinet today. Some 7,400 new homes were commenced in the first quarter of this year and this is the highest figure since records began. We are, therefore, making progress. Part of the issue here is capacity. If we were to talk to anyone in a construction company or to people seeking to do some work on their houses, they would say it is very hard to get workers. The Deputy is right when she says we need workers in this country-----

Yes.

-----and I am glad to say that 12,500 Ukrainians who have come here are working and contributing to our economy. We want more of this. We want to help them to integrate into the community and to take up employment.

I was in Roscommon on Thursday and I met Ukrainians there. The first thing they always say is "Thank You" to the Irish people for accommodating them. They are genuinely grateful for the help they have got. We are working with them through different programmes, such as the social inclusion and community activation programme, SICAP, to help them to train and reskill. In fact, I gave out certificates because those people are going to get jobs in the local hotel.

Why are they living in tents?

We are working on all the different angles and we are getting further accommodation, as I said earlier. We will be announcing it-----

This week.

-----before the end of this week.