A warm welcome for people fleeing war is not a cold shoulder to others in need

While the daily territorial gains and human losses are no longer making the front pages, the common sight of Ukrainian flags flying in people’s gardens, hanging from their balconies or emblazoned on bumper stickers on their cars testifies to the widespread sympathy Irish people have with those fleeing the Russian invasion of that country.

It is also clear that this sympathy, while dedicated to concrete help, is not utopian. In a recent Irish Times poll, 82 per cent of those asked insisted that Ireland must live up to its international obligations while 84 per cent held that there also must be some kind of limit. With reports that people seeking refuge in Ireland are now left with no option but to sleep on the floor in centres like the transit hub at Citywest, it would make sense for us to ask if the limit has already been breached.

That question is morally significant when it is concerned with the wellbeing of the one seeking protection. It is somewhat less meritorious when deployed as a means to truncate our own responsibility. On social media sites, one can readily find people framing that question to imply that a warm welcome offered to someone fleeing war is a cold shoulder to someone born and raised in Ireland.

[ Irish Times poll: Voters favour limit on number of Ukrainians admitted into State ]

Politicians have fallen into similar traps, appearing blind to the life and death situation that prompts a family to flee Ukraine. Carol Nolan, an Independent TD, has suggested the new arrivals could “pose a risk to social cohesion” and Michael Collins, also an Independent, has worried about the impact on tourism.

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No one is choosing to leave Ukraine of their own volition. Vladimir Putin’s invasion is not a fortuitous loophole through which people can access the European Union. Those who have arrived here have been forced out of their homes under the threat of advancing tanks and descending missiles. While no one imagines that a policy of welcome will be without cost, there is also a simple moral reality at play: their lives are under threat and we can keep them safe. That’s worth the cost.

Political questions are rarely posed in so stark a light. And Ireland’s admirable pledge to offer safe haven is not made alone. We are joined by our neighbours across Europe who also recognise that this invasion represents in some way an existential threat to all our liberty.

Based on the latest UNHCR figures, Ireland has welcomed 43,400 refugees since the war began on February 24th last. This is a large number, put into perspective by the 11,689 that were housed in direct provision at the last count. But we are 17th in the list of 27 nations within the EU when it comes to welcoming Ukrainian refugees.

Understandably, the majority of those fleeing are seeking refuge in Ukraine’s direct neighbours. Moldova is vastly poorer than Ireland and has half the population, but it has taken more than twice as many refugees. Poland has taken in more than 1.2 million already. Proportionately, they have welcomed about four times as many people as we have.

It is undoubted that welcoming such large numbers into our communities will make demands on our already stretched services. But it is important that we are clear that those services did not find themselves transformed overnight from stable to stretched by the arrival of refugees. They were in crisis long before Putin’s forces advanced through the Donbas.

Ukrainian refugees will enrich our society while they are here, eager to carve out some peace and stability when everything else in their lives has been thrown into flux

It is not wrong for us to recognise the reality that we cannot host every fleeing Ukrainian. But that we are so rapidly limited in our ability to offer hospitality in such a dire circumstance is a testimony to how our own essential services have been diminished and malnourished over the years.

To take housing as the classic example: long after we recognised the homelessness crisis but before the current invasion, local authorities managed to directly build just 823 houses across the country last year. The scandal there is not that we would welcome those whose lives hang in the balance, but that we have for so long left the provision of essential services to the market and thus excluded those who simply cannot pay.

It is right that we would welcome Ukrainian refugees with open arms. They will enrich our society while they are here, eager to carve out some peace and stability when everything else in their lives has been thrown into flux. And it is right that we would press the Government to provide high-quality essential services. Why not do both?

The logical path for a republic is to see the need to extend welcome to refugees as an opportunity instead of a threat. The gift of clarity, brought by hosting those newly arrived from an occupied land, is a reminder of the ideals upon which our independence was established.

Such a path is also the logical step for Christians in Ireland. Pope Francis has been relentless in reminding us that Jesus was a displaced person, his family had to flee the military force of a cruel tyrant. In his most recent encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, Francis writes that “our response to the arrival of migrating persons can be summarised by four words: welcome, protect, promote and integrate” (§129).

If we pursue that path, we will not find that the needs of our native neighbours go unmet, but instead that we have a society that is better able to meet the fundamental needs of everyone. We cannot help our distant neighbours without also helping our neighbours near at hand.

Kevin Hargaden is director and social theologian at the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice in Dublin