The Irish Red Cross are today beginning to contact the owners of thousands of people across the South-East, offering up their home to welcome Ukrainian refugees.
Assessments on thousands of vacant homes are set to get underway soon, as Ireland prepares to welcome more people fleeing the war in Ukraine.
2,284 accommodations across the regions have been made available to the Red Cross for assessment, with both Wexford (731) and Tipperary (604) featuring in the top 10 nationwide.
410 accommodations were offered in Waterford, with 333 in Kilkenny, while in Carlow there are 206 property owners due to be contacted to house those in need.
The Red Cross will begin contacting homeowners in the coming days, who've offered their empty property to refugees.
Over 20,000 people have pledged spare rooms or whole properties to those fleeing the Russian invasion. Of those, 4,000 have registered fully vacant homes.
The Irish Red Cross and the Defence Forces will begin phoning them today, before sending out property valuers to assess the suitability of the homes.
Liam O'Dwyer, Secretary General of the Irish Red Cross explains how it will work.
"The Defence Forces will make the call and ask for permission for one of our colleagues from the Valuers Association to call and check out the house.
"(It's) to make sure from a Health and Safety point of view - mainly - that the house is ready to receive a refugee family." said O'Dwyer, who added that valuers will assess the houses and flag any work that needs to be done prior to their arrival
"If there's anything missing, that's the other side of it. We'll ask them to record that and get the information back to us.
"Microsoft helped us with an app to do this electronically through a mobile phone, so that will make it a more supple process.
"So that begins today."
