Concerns have been raised that hoteliers "across the country" are still waiting months to be paid for providing food and accommodation to Ukrainian refugees.
Fianna Fáil's John McGuinness, who first raised the issue in November, said that he has heard from hotel owners from various parts of the country who continue to face lengthy delays in being paid sometimes "considerable" sums.
A spokesperson for the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth said that it is continuing to work to "clear the remaining backlog."
RTÉ News has spoken to one hotelier who says they are providing accommodation and three meals a day to around 50 Ukrainian refugees and they have not been paid in over 100 days.
The hotelier, who did not want to be identified, is catering exclusively for Ukrainian refugees, and so has no income from other guests.
Emails sent by them to the Department, and seen by RTÉ News, showed that they also waited months for a previous payment.
In one email exchange the hotelier states more than once: "...we need payment urgently."
They describe it as "completely unfair" that they are accommodating people for months with "no income whatsoever."
They describe how they cannot pay suppliers and say that there are still "more bills coming in".
"That's not an isolated case, this is a problem right across the country," Mr McGuinness said, adding that "in some cases [unpaid invoices] run up to considerable amounts of money".
Mr McGuinness said that after he raised it in November "some payments were made" but he said "payments are not up to date".
"I'm now asking again that they would pay people when money is due, that's all that's being asked of the Department," Mr McGuinness said.
He also said that many service providers also face difficulties in getting information from the Department in relation to their outstanding invoices.
"There is very poor communication with IPAS (International Protection Accommodation Service) and those that are giving the service cannot get a response by email or by phone and that needs to change," Mr McGuinness said.
Department is 'working rapidly'
According to Department figures, there are currently 46,500 Ukrainian refugees being accommodated in more than 700 serviced accommodation settings.
A spokesperson for the Department said that "overseeing provision of accommodation on this scale remains very challenging."
"The Department is working rapidly to process all invoices received, and has assigned additional resources to process these payments" and "will continue to work intensively to clear the remaining backlog" they said.
The Irish Tourism Industry Confederation (ITIC) has raised concerns about the negative impact the Government's reliance on tourist accommodation to house Ukrainian refugees and international protection applicants may have on the industry.
According to its Recovery and Outlook report released on Tuesday, as of November last year 23.5% of tourist accommodation was contracted to the Government for such accommodation, and that figure rose to 28% outside of Dublin.
The report forecast that "the crunch point will occur in March/April when operators will determine the future of much of this capacity currently withdrawn from the tourism market."
CEO for the ITIC Eoghan O'Mara Walsh said that "issues such as slow payment and delayed payment is certainly not incentivising hotels and guest houses to remain committed to Government contracts.
"They are going to have a decision to make, whether to continue with Government contracts or go back into the tourism economy," Mr O'Mara Walsh said.
"If they continue with the Government contracts it poses a problem for the tourism industry because there will be tourism towns up and down the length and breadth of the country without tourism beds and therefore there won't be the tourism activity.
"However if they go back into the tourism economy there's a problem for the refugees because where will the be accommodated," said Mr O'Mara Walsh.
He added that the Government needed to come up with a more medium-term accommodation plan for refugees and international protection applicants.
