Specialised unit to be put in place to meet refugees from Ukraine in Ireland
Women and children, fleeing from Ukraine, arrive on the platform of the train station in Przemysl, Poland, after disembarking from a bus which traveled from the border, Tuesday, March 8, 2022. Picture: AP Photo/Markus Schreiber
Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Roderic O’Gorman has said that a specialised unit will shortly be put in place to meet refugees from Ukraine as they arrive at airports and ports in Ireland.
It comes as around 2,500 Irish people have pledged to take in Ukrainian refugees as the numbers fleeing the country topped 1.7m in what has been described as the biggest humanitarian response in Irish history.
At present, Department of Justice officials are the contact point at airports, Minister O'Gorman told RTÉ's .
They can arrange accommodation and contact with the Department of Social Protection which will then provide PPS numbers and other supports to enable access to the labour market.
On arrival, once a person presents themselves to the Department of Justice officials, they are issued with a letter stating that they are in Ireland under the EU’s Temporary Protection order.
Mr O’Gorman acknowledged that the portal through which Irish people can register their willingness to provide accommodation for refugees from Ukraine crashed last night, but he said it is back up this morning.
There will be checks on all offers of sharing accommodation, but Mr O'Gorman did not say if this would include Garda vetting.
The main priority is to ensure that all who arrived are safe in whatever accommodation they are placed in. A full range of mechanisms will be put in place, he said.
He added that he is asking Irish people to be patient as various Government departments come together to coordinate a response.
Around 2,000 people fleeing the war in Ukraine, many with family links here, have landed in Ireland so far with thousands more expected in the coming days.
The minister yesterday launched the Irish Red Cross's online portal allowing people to register accommodation and other offers of voluntary assistance for Ukrainians.
Volunteers from Three and Web Summit have begun verifying pledges and Red Cross staff will visit homes and put a matching system in place in the coming days. It is understood the system will take around three weeks to match refugees with homes.
As part of the plan to welcome Ukrainian refugees, Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys will bring forward a raft of entitlements at Cabinet tomorrow, including providing a PPS number to Ukrainians to allow them to access government services and income supports such as supplementary allowance and child benefit.
Department of Social Protection officials will have a presence at airports, along with the Department of Justice.
Ukrainians seeking to access third-level education in Ireland will be treated as EU students, allowing them to access grants and avoid international student fees, Minister for Further and Higher Education Simon Harris said yesterday.
Mr O'Gorman told the that around 500 Ukrainians are in hotel accommodation in Ireland but said that even combined with pledges of accommodation from homeowners, this will not be enough, and that all government departments are working on solutions.
"It's early in the process but all factors indicate the biggest humanitarian response the State has ever had," Mr O'Gorman said.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees on Monday put the number of people who have arrived in other countries since the Russian invasion started on February 24 at 1.735m. That is up from more than 1.53m on Sunday.
Nearly three-fifths of the total - nearly 1.03m - arrived in Poland, according to the agency. More than 180,000 went to Hungary and 128,000 to Slovakia.
Speaking ahead of a meeting of EU development ministers, the bloc's EU foreign affairs policy chief Josep Borrell called for a mobilisation of all the resources of the bloc of 27 nations to help countries welcoming refugees from Ukraine, including neighbouring Poland and Romania.
Meanwhile, At this week's leaders' summit, European Union leaders look set to agree to phase out the EU's dependency on imports of Russian gas, oil and coal, a draft statement showed, marking a turning point in its policy towards Moscow prompted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Leaders including Taoiseach Micheál Martin will meet in Versailles, France on Thursday and Friday to discuss boosting their joint defence capability and Ukraine's bid to become a member of the 27-nation bloc.
"We agreed to phase out our dependency on Russian gas, oil and coal imports," the draft statement of the leaders, seen by Reuters, said.
The task will be tough, however, because the EU currently buys from Russia 45% of its imported gas, around a third of its oil and nearly half of its coal. This makes the bloc vulnerable should Russia decide to retaliate for EU policies by curbing exports.
Meanwhile, the continuing evacuation of millions of Ukrainians came as its foreign ministry said that Russian shelling is preventing the evacuation of civilians from the cities of Kyiv, Mariupol, Sumy, Kharkiv, Volnovakha and Mykolayiv.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
