Paul Murphy accuses hotel management of abusing Ukrainian refugees

Thanks. One of the scandalous aspects of the direct provision system is how it has left direct provision residents and people, asylum seekers, often at the mercy of management, and management behaving, you know, abusing their power against them. I want to ask the Taoiseach, what measures are in place to stop this happening in relation to Ukrainian refugees who are staying in places that didn't previously have refugees, for example, in hotels? I was in touch with Ukrainian refugees who told me an extremely concerning story about what has been taking place at the address hotel in City West. There are 141 Ukrainian refugees staying there. The state is paying the hotel for them to stay there. They are talking about extremely poor quality of food being provided to them, overwhelmingly fried food, food that is having very negative consequences for their children's health in particular, deteriorating. A deterioration of children's health and a deterioration in the quality of food since they have moved in there on the 1st of July of last year. They have no capacity to cook their own food. They have no access to the kitchen. They cannot have proper cooking facilities in the hotel rooms. They are now paying for this food. They are now paying for this food and since they have been paying for it, they approached the management and they said, well, can the food be improved, can we have more fruit and vegetables and so on. The approach of management was horrendous, extremely rude, extremely brusque, including saying to them, you need to eat less so you can be slim like me, horrendous abuse of power. To top it off, the three representatives of the refugees were evicted from the hotel. They were evicted from the only place they have to live because they are standing up for the refugees negotiating with management about that. Horrendous abuse of power. What measures are in place to ensure that this sort of thing cannot be happening? I want to thank the deputies again for their questions. I do think when we talk about the whole issue of Ukraine and the wider migration issue, we do need to put it into context. We are seeing a war on the continent of Europe, the likes of which we have not seen since the 1940s. We are seeing refugee movements across Europe, the likes of which we have not seen in our lifetime, certainly since the 1940s. We are seeing a trebling of international protection applicants from outside the European Union coming into Europe and also coming into Ireland. This is an unprecedented situation. I do not think we have seen as many people on the move for a very long time. The last time we would have seen something like this in Ireland would have been in the aftermath of the famine, and that was people moving out rather than people moving in. So not far off 100,000 people coming to Ireland in the past year, either from Ukraine or from other parts of the world, applying for international protection. Even if two years ago we had amazing foresight and decided to build a city the size of Waterford with 20,000 houses and apartments, that would be full by now. That is the scale and the numbers we are dealing with. When you consider it that way, we have performed very well as a country and as a society. We have taken in more people from Ukraine on a per capita basis than any other country in Western Europe, provided them with shelter, heat and light, accommodation, access to education, health care and protection. When we look back on this period, we as a country will be proud of the contribution that we have made to help Ukrainians escape the terrible war that has been visited on them by Vladimir Putin and those around him. When it comes to the appointment of a minister of state with specific responsibility for integration, which I know has been posed by Sinn Féin or a minister of state for housing of migrants, which I think has been proposed by Labour, I am not sure if that is the appointment of one new minister of state or two. I do not think it is a bad idea, by the way, but the law does set out very clearly that we can only have 20 ministers of state. I am not really sure what is being proposed here. Is it an additional to go to 21 or 22 or is it that we should suppress existing posts and if so, which ones and why? I would be very reluctant to come into the Dáil with legislation to increase the numbers of ministers of state unless I had an understanding from other parties about whether we can increase the number from 20 to something higher. I am open to that or whether we should abolish particular positions and which ones and if so, why? If we are going to do anything on it at all, I would really seek all-party consensus on it. I do not want to come in here and propose the appointment of extra ministers only to be told that this is a terrible thing from the same people who would have been calling for it for months and months. I hope you will accept that I am sincere in that regard. I do want to say on the floor of the House that the response from the Government is coordinated. I do not think it is fair to say that it is not. There is a lead department. There has to be a lead department for everything. In this case, the lead department, appropriately, is the Department of Integration. There is a coordinated response from Government. There is a Cabinet Subcommittee. I chaired as Taoiseach. Senior officials from my Department are across what is going on. I will give you a few examples as to how other aspects of the Government have helped out. The Defence Forces, as we know, have provided accommodation in barracks and camps and are willing to do more. The Department of Transport provides services in the airports and ports where people arrive. The Department of Justice has a role to play as well in border control. The Department of Higher Ed has and will provide student accommodation in the summer for refugees as needed. The Department of Foreign Affairs does regular engagement with the Ukrainian and other authorities. The Department of Health has provided medical cards and health services for tens of thousands of people. The Department of Education has made sure that 14,000 Ukrainian children have been enrolled in our schools. The HSC has put forward dozens of buildings to be considered for refurbishment to accommodate migrants. The OPW is in charge of putting in place 700 modular homes for Ukrainians this year. It is a coordinated response. I think the suggestion that the Department of Integration has been left to do it all on their own is unfair and does not stack up when you see how many other people in different government departments and agencies in different aspects of the State are doing all that they can to help out. In relation to the online platforms, I do not have any plans at the moment to meet with them, but Minister Coveney and Minister Martin do engage with the online social media platforms on a regular basis and I may ask them to take up the point in their particular meetings. I am aware of the complaints that are made or have been made in relation to the address hotel and understand that they are being investigated. In terms of peace in Ukraine, and I think we will all agree on this, the best way to achieve peace in Ukraine is for Russia to withdraw, if not withdraw fully from Ukraine at least to the borders and the line of control that we had a year ago. While it is the case that from time to time EU leaders are in contact with Russia, not something I am doing, I have no particular relationship with President Putin, I have only met him once very briefly, but there are others who do, and those who have been in contact with them have come away with a very grim assessment that there is no interest and no willingness on the Russian side to deescalate this conflict. Bear in mind, it is the Russians that are firing missiles into Ukrainian cities that are sending their drones to attack Ukrainian civilian targets. It is not the other way around. The Ukrainians cannot stop doing that. And it is Russia that is occupying Ukrainian territory. The Ukrainians, what can they do? Stop defending themselves? I do not think that is a realistic ask. I would never ask them not to defend themselves. So the only prospect for peace arises when there is a change of heart and a change of mind in the Kremlin and a willingness at the very least to pause and to pull back. And that would appear to not at all be the case. In fact, they are planning on escalation and planning on murdering more people and doing as much harm and damage as they can. So that's why they have no conflict between us and puttingHere inners. Where is Greg? What ministries do you like to do now? It is very hard for us. It is good for you.