Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

We were looking to provide them with accommodation. We were working in real-time, in an absolute emergency, to provide accommodation to tens of thousands of Ukrainians. There were no ideal sites or ideal situations at all. We also know, because the Comptroller and Auditor General quotes this, although Deputy McDonald left it out, that the overall cost of the modular project is the equivalent of five years of hiring private sector rooms in hotels, which is not something we want to do. This is an investment that we will have, rather than wasting money on private sector hotel rooms.

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