‘There is nowhere safe in Ukraine’: Organiser criticises plans to impose 90-day housing time limit for refugees

The State should focus on incentivising and supporting Ukrainian refugees to enter the labour market rather than placing a time limit on accommodation supports, the chief executive of Helping Irish Hosts (HIH) has said.

Angie Gough, who cofounded HIH in March 2022 in response to the arrival of thousands of Ukrainian refugees, warned that limiting accommodation supports to 90 days would “only exacerbate the homelessness issue” and said “longer term planning” and “better central co-ordination” was needed to deal with the crisis.

Accommodation providers should also be compelled to invest earnings in integration services, she said. “There needs to be a quid pro quo here.”

Older Ukrainians, including grandparents who refused to leave their homes before now, are arriving in Ireland in larger numbers as the war in Ukraine enters its third winter, said Ms Gough. “These are the people who have tried for as long as possible to stay in Ukraine; these are the older demographics who are coming here to join family. A lot of Irish people have moved on but there has been no progress in Ukraine. And now with everything going on in the Middle East it’s frightening to think what that chaos will allow Putin to do in Ukraine. The people staying with our hosts are really scared about what comes next. Winter is coming – it’s only going to get worse.”

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A total of 3,723 Ukrainians arrived in Ireland and applied for temporary protection between September 25th and October 26th, according to data provided by the Department of Justice. The busiest day for arrivals was October 11th, when 225 people arrived, while just 52 people arrived on both September 25th and October 15th. Some 829 Ukrainian refugees arrived during the week leading up to October 26th.

More than 90,000 people fleeing the war in Ukraine are now living in Ireland, including over 70,000 people in State-provided accommodation.

Responding to comments last week that some Ukrainians were coming to Ireland from relatively safe areas of Ukraine, Ms Gough said from her experience working with refugees, “there is nowhere safe in Ukraine”.

“We also hear the claims that people are coming for social welfare but that really isn’t playing out in the thousands of people we’re interacting with.”

Olga Chekmaieva, who arrived in Ireland from Odessa in April 2022, says her main reason for seeking protection in Ireland was because she already spoke English. She also believes many of the Ukrainians who initially travelled to another European country also came here for linguistic reasons. They struggle to learn a new language and think “with some knowledge of English it might be better for me in Ireland,” she told The Irish Times.

“We were forced to leave our homes and it’s difficult to make a proper decision, it’s difficult to understand that you have to stay in another country and that is your new home,” she said. “They’ve been through stress and shock and wherever they ended up was not their decision. Now that they have recovered they can make the right decision and think of Ireland.”

Many Ukrainians learn about Ireland’s accommodation crisis before arriving here but also hear they will receive a warm welcome on these shores, she said.

Another Ukrainian woman, who preferred to remain anonymous for fear of pushback, says the Government should prioritise arrivals from eastern and southern Ukraine as a means of reducing numbers. “There are people in the east who didn’t leave before now because they didn’t have the money or were too scared but now they are fleeing and Ireland is another chance for them,” she told The Irish Times. “But all the places are taken and some of these newcomers are coming from safer territories. People living around Kyiv and in the west can go to cafes and their children can attend school but in the east and south people cannot even buy clothes.”

Asked whether plans to introduce a 90-day time limit on accommodation for Ukrainian arrivals had progressed, a Department of Children and Equality spokesperson said “no decision has been taken on a change to the current approach and the department continues to prioritise those arrivals considered to be vulnerable”.

An ongoing review is also examining “the need to shift from an emergency response towards a more sustainable medium-term approach”.