State hopes to house up to 5,300 refugees in 89 buildings identified by councils

The Government hopes to provide accommodation for as many as 5,300 Ukrainian refugees in 89 buildings identified by local authorities in the coming weeks.

Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien also said that as part of efforts to deal with the influx of people from the war-torn country, councils around the country have identified more than 500 buildings such as education and health facilities and old convents that could be repurposed to house refugees.

Of these, 89 could be used in the short term and Mr O’Brien said the Government will help in ensuring as many as 5,300 people can move into those properties.

He told RTÉ’s Six One News that the properties are being assessed and may need partitions installed. He said privacy for families and safety and security is “absolutely paramount” and will be provided.

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He said other buildings identified will require more significant repurposing and refurbishment work that could take between three and 12 months.

Mr O’Brien said such accommodation was on top of that offered by Ukrainian people already living in Ireland, properties pledged by Irish people and the use of hotels by the State.

However, he said these are not medium- or long-term solutions and that’s why his department are looking at other options.

In terms of modular homes, Mr O’Brien has asked local authorities to identify lands serviced with water, electricity and transport connections that could be used for such buildings.

Temporary

He said: “They are more temporary type accommodation of good quality and initially we’ll be looking at rolling out 500 of them across a number of sites to actually see what the lead time is for their delivery.

“Further on from that we’ll be looking at how we can provide more semi-permanent and permanent accommodation.”

Mr O’Brien said the Government will be protecting its Housing for All plan while seeking to find accommodation for refugees, including delivering 9,000 new social housing builds and delivering affordable homes on the private market.

He said the refugee response “does require additionality” and it is “looking at repurposing, refurbishment and indeed rolling out of modular units and this will ramp up over the coming months”.

Asked on RTÉ television on Tuesday evening about whether the communal nature of much of the accommodation being prepared at present represented a long term solution, Minister for Integration Roderic O’Gorman said “I think some element of the accommodation going forward will be grouped accommodation. I think we have to be realistic about that fact.”

Pressed on whether he felt this might amount to a new form Direct Provision, he said the Government is anxious to avoid that.

“I am very conscious of the fact that we don’t want to replicate a system of Direct Provision but we’re also very aware of the scale of the numbers that we’re dealing with right now. The fact we’re dealing with a wartime situation, a situation none of us envisaged a number of months ago.”

Mr O’Gorman said other issues around the Direct Provision system, specifically isolation from employment and services, would not be repeated for Ukrainians arriving in the country.