A total of 63 Ukrainian refugees are now thought to be living in the island.

Since the programme was launched in March, 44 are confirmed to have arrived via the home sponsorship pathway, and around 19 through the family pathway.

However, there is a large surplus of 307 Manx households which have made themselves available to accommodate refugees.

It is because the refugees arriving through the latter pathway are not required to register with a host, that the number cannot be confirmed for certain.

In this week’s sitting of the House of Keys Garff MHK Daphne Caine asked what the reason was for this ‘blockage’, and why despite the ‘extreme’ flow of refugees from the country, the supply of Manx households was not being utilised to help out.

Minister for the Cabinet Office Kate Lord-Brennan explained that the government’s Homes for Ukraine scheme was not set up to be able to match hosts with Ukrainian refugees.

Currently, prospective hosts must either find named Ukrainians and their immediate families to accommodate, or if they do not know anyone personally, to register as a sponsor and the matching up will be left to voluntary organisations, but not the Manx government.

‘I think the ongoing issue is that the Isle of Man government does not have a list of Ukrainians waiting to come to the island’, said Ms Lord-Brennan.

‘And it’s quite clear in all communications to those who sign up for the Safe Homes scheme, that it’s not a role that the government is able to play, in terms of facilitating those connections.’

She continued:‘We have explored various options, and I do still raise with officers if they’re able to research other ways to connect, but at the moment, these connections do rely on those individual connections between a potential host who would have to initiate a visa application process.

‘And also for someone to first of all know about, and want to come to the island.’

Ms Lord-Brennan added that ‘to see if there is a way to facilitate these connections’ the government had held ongoing discussions with organisations on island, and also those such as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the British Red Cross and UK embassy and church groups.

Mrs Caine noted that many prospective hosts were disappointed to have not been able to match with a family and one said it had taken her ‘hours and hours, weeks of work’ to make contact with a Ukrainian family through Facebook groups and people working in the north west of England.

She also wanted to know whether the government would give more support to help Ukrainians learn English, so that they can better settle and ‘get jobs at the level which they are educated to do’.

Ms Lord-Brennan pointed to language learning group Cafe Lingo, which has become somewhat of a hub for Ukrainian refugees, had been provided with some IT support.

Ukrainian refugees are also eligible for the government’s long-established work placement scheme (open to all residents), where it pays minimum wage at no cost to approved employers for a trial period of up to four months.