Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 5 April 2022
72. Deputy Paul Donnelly asked the Minister for Rural and Community Development the additional supports that will be provided to community and voluntary groups, including local partnerships that have stepped up to support Ukrainian refugees. [18308/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraI ask about additional supports that will be provided to community and voluntary groups, including local partnerships, that have stepped up to support Ukrainian refugees.
The Government is working to ensure that local capacity, resources and knowledge are brought to bear on the overall humanitarian response to people fleeing Ukraine and seeking protection in Ireland. My Department is contributing to the effort by linking with key stakeholders at community level, providing information, assisting the co-ordination of supports through the community sector and enabling flexibility in programme delivery to shift focus onto the Ukraine response.
My Department recently hosted an information webinar attended by over 160 participants from community and voluntary sector organisations involved in the Ukraine response effort. The webinar provided information, disseminated key messages and encouraged communication and co-ordination. As part of the overall Government response, officials from the Department will regularly meet key national stakeholders from the community and voluntary sector to provide any necessary guidance, help address any operational issues that might arise locally and ensure consistent communications.
My Department has also committed to enabling flexibility in programme delivery where necessary to support the response. For example, flexibility has been offered to local development companies in respect of social inclusion and community activation programme, SICAP, resources. This will ensure that approximately 600 community development workers are available to help support arrivals from Ukraine. In addition, organisations supported under the community services programme can include Ukrainians in the target groups for their services. Exceptional additional funding for staff resources is being provided by my Department to volunteer centres providing support in front-line reception hubs and to a community support programme, CSP, organisation to assist its efforts in co-ordinating the response to Ukrainian refugees.
We are all in touch with many members of community organisations who work with and support Ukrainian refugees. They utilise every tool and all funding and support that they have built up in our communities over the years to support the thousands of Ukrainians who are coming into our country and communities. That is not unlimited and it has a cost to the people whom these organisations were already supporting in disadvantaged areas. I am concerned about the Minister of State's answer about shifting the focus of different programmes to supporting Ukrainian refugees. That is fine. However, it cannot be at the cost of existing services, which have been providing supports in disadvantaged areas for years.
As I said, there is a limit to the support and staffing hours that can be utilised. Therefore, they need extra funding and extra support. It has to be on top of, and not from a shift in focus.
I would add that 600 community development workers have been freed from the majority of their core work to assist with helping and supporting people who are arriving from Ukraine into their locality. There was also a 10% increase in the social inclusion and community activation programme, SICAP, budget from last year. That will add a significant additional resource and capacity to the local development companies going forward.
In terms of community volunteering, exceptional additional funding for staff resources is being provided by my Department to two volunteer centres in Wexford and in South Dublin, which are dealing with particularly large pinch points. They are providing support in front-line reception hubs. As well as this, there is a community services programme in Lisdoonvarna Fáilte, which is another area that is experiencing a high demand. There is exceptional additional funding allocated to Lisdoonvarna Fáilte to assist in its efforts in co-ordinating the response to Ukrainian refugees.
I take the Deputy’s point about resources being shifted. We have had to act quickly and that was the quickest way that we could do it. However, as I said earlier, we will be maintaining close contact with the organisations on the ground and with their national representative bodies as the weeks and months go forward.
As I said, I have no issue with the fact that we had to react quickly. The communities, the organisations and the voluntary and community organisations acted really quickly. In some cases, they acted quicker than the State. This is because the State did not notice that, for example in my constituency, upwards of 70 Ukrainian refugees came into the community. The local organisations were not informed. Yet, they went in, they did the work and they stood up.
When the Minister says that 600 community development workers have been freed from their core work, that means that their core work is not being done. That is my point. We need a medium-term and a long-term strategy to deal with this refugee crisis, because there will be possibly upwards of 200,000 people. The strategy should also deal with how we continue to support the core work of those 600 community development workers. They were not sitting around, twiddling their thumbs before this. They were doing valuable work in our communities. That work cannot be disturbed, lost or put aside for a number of weeks or months. This work needs to be done, and it needs to be done at the same time as we support Ukrainian refugees.
I accept the Deputy’s point. I think we will see an improvement in co-ordination at a local level over the coming weeks with the establishment of the community response fora. There is capacity at a local level that has not been best utilised because of the lack of co-ordination over the initial few weeks. There have been small areas of overlap. There have also been people who have not been reached. That cohort is most important and is a priority at the moment.
I would urge the public to contact our local volunteer centre. There is still a lot of goodwill out there. People want to help and want to get involved. I would direct people to their local volunteer centre, if they have time and effort to give. However, I take the Deputy’s points and we will be monitoring the situation closely. As I mentioned, we have provided additional funding in some exceptional circumstances. We will be taking information from the ground up, as well as from national organisations in monitoring the situation across the country.
