Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 1 February 2024
346. Deputy Michael McNamara asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth further to Parliamentary Question No. 336 of 25 January 2024, if he will elaborate upon the improvements to his Department’s processes. [4736/24]
View answer347. Deputy Michael McNamara asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth further to Parliamentary Question No. 336 of 25 January 2024, when the improvements to his Department’s processes occurred. [4737/24]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 346 and 347 together.
My Department established a dedicated team in May 2023 to improve the processes around contracted vacancy identification and to provide a more structured approach to the validation and distribution of vacancies for use by operational teams.
The team monitor a dedicated inbox, examining each weekly register submitted by accommodation providers and ensuring that these are fully and correctly completed. Omissions and inaccuracies are followed up directly with the providers.
Each register is cross checked with my Department’s systems to ensure that any vacancies identified by the provider are within contracted capacity and to confirm that the particular accommodation provider is not under review for any reason. Where providers identify vacancies over their contracted capacity, they are referred to the offers portal to assess the suitability of these additional rooms for contract. Only contracted vacancies can be filled to ensure the safety and security of Beneficiaries of Temporary Protection (BOTPs). Vacancies at providers which are under review by my Department will not be used until such time as the review is resolved to the satisfaction of officials.
Vacancies which can be used immediately are input to a dedicated online source developed by the team. All operational teams have access to the data and can view the details of the available vacancies in each property including information about the vacancy, such as room size and configuration, allowing them to match BOTPs to accommodation most suitable to their particular needs. It is my Department’s policy to maximise the use of existing contracted vacancies over new procurements.
The team also have a compliance role and have focussed on increasing accommodation provider compliance with the contractual requirement to submit a fully completed register for their property each and every week. Compliance with this requirement is now at over 95% and continues to improve. The team will pursue the small number of providers who are not submitting registers each week in line with contractual requirements so as to maximise my Department’s use of contracted vacancies.
While individual registers have always been fully examined in the context of specific circumstances, such as the relocation of BOTPs or in the case of larger accommodation centres, prior to the establishment of the dedicated team and given the given the large number of providers, the general validation of registers could only take place intermittently and usually with a random subset of providers. The dedicated team work exclusively on the identification of usable contracted vacancies within an operation of significant scale and new processes ensure that each and every register submitted by providers is examined, with vacancies which can be immediately used made available to operational times on the same day. My Department will continue to keep these processes under review to maximise effectiveness.
