Children's Minister Roderic O'Gorman says his department regrets any delays in payments to hoteliers / providers of accommodation for Ukrainian refugees and insists funds are available for the services.
Yesterday Midwest News reported that some hoteliers in Mayo that have contracts with the government to accommodate refugees claim they are waiting excessively long periods to receive any payment.
One hotelier explained the strain, as their electricity bills continue to rise, food bills and other overhead costs soar due to the number of refugees that they are now accommodating for more than four months, without any monies coming through from the state.
Midwest New contacted Minister O’Gorman’s office to seek clarification on the matter and received this response
“Approximately 700 providers are providing accommodation for the Department.
Funds are certainly available to pay for the services.
The Department regrets any delays in making payments to providers and we aim to facilitate any that contact us experiencing payment difficulties.
The Department has assigned additional staffing resources to deal with the extraordinary volume of payments required to be made in the context of the Ukraine crisis”.
