24,500 refugees have arrived in Ireland since February.

More than half of the accommodation pledges made for Ukrainian refugees in Ireland have not been fulfilled. It comes as the government is struggling to find accommodation for those who have fled the war. 24,500 refugees have arrived in Ireland so far and that figure expected to rise to up to 33,000 by the end of May. According to Red Cross, all of the 24,000 people who initially made offers will have been contacted by the end of this week. 16 per cent of the property owners have withdrawn their offers and 38 per cent cannot be reached. However, Irish Red Cross secretary-general Liam O'Dwyer told Newstalk radio that there are many vacant homes ready for refugees to move in to them. "There is about 2,200, and we have moved them on to the department, and they are now looking to work with local authorities and with the IOM and with Peter McVerry Trust to do the placement of refugees into those properties. "We are also doing some placement ourselves." He said the Red Cross will keep trying to contact those who offered their homes but have ben unreachable so far. Earlier this month, Liam O'Dwyer from the Irish Red Cross also appeared on Newstalk explaining why some people may have reconsidered their initial offer. "When people make a pledge - we would have experienced this before when we began the pledges database for the Syrian refugees... what happens is people immediately say 'Yeah, this is something we'd really like to do'," he said. "And they say 'Actually we've thought about it now, and no we're not going to go ahead'. And then others, just the phone isn't answered - and we can't move ahead unless there is an actual response from the person. "We also need further details because many people, when they go on to the pledge database, they don't give the full details."