Green Glens Arena in Co Cork among venues lined up to shelter refugees from Ukraine

The Green Glens Arena in Millstreet, Co Cork — best known for showjumping and for hosting the Eurovision song contest final in 1993 — may be used to shelter refugees from Ukraine. File picture: Dan Linehan

Large arenas such as the Green Glens Arena in Millstreet, Co Cork and the National Show Centre in north County Dublin are being lined up as short-term accommodation to house Ukrainian refugees.

More than 10m people have now fled their homes since the Russian invasion, with more than 9,000 refugees arriving in Ireland as of Friday night.

As the Government scrambles to block book hotel rooms to house Ukrainians, it is turning to large-scale accommodation for temporary housing.

More than 20,000 offers of accommodation have come in from Irish property owners and the Government is prioritising placing refugees in the 2,000 vacant homes that have been pledged, with shared accommodation offers to be utilised in the coming weeks.

On Sunday, Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman said: “In a crisis situation it is a possibility we have to plan for” should there be a “sudden surge of people arriving at our ports and airports": 

Somewhere like Green Glens [in Millstreet Co Cork] and the National Show Centre [in north County Dublin] would be a location where we could move people out of Dublin airport, give them food, provide them somewhere to rest in the short term while we’re looking for hotel accommodation for them.

“At the moment that would be the kind of circumstance in which those locations would be used for very short-term stays.” 

The John Mitchels GAA Sports Complex in Tralee has already been placed on standby as a centre for short-term accommodation.

Kerry County Council has confirmed that an agreement has been reached with council management which is co-ordinating transport and other services for refugees to use the sports hall for overnight accommodation “in the event of no hotel beds being available”.

Mr O’Gorman said that, as of Friday evening, 9,000 Ukrainian refugees had arrived in the country and of those around half are being accommodated primarily in hotels.

We’re continuing to look to book hotel accommodation to deal with short-term accommodation needs and, as of this weekend, we have begun to draw down accommodation from the pledges provided by the Irish people.

“Over 20,000 offers have come in, a huge show of generosity, and my department is looking to start to activate some of those accommodation options now, starting initially with options of vacant housing.” 

In terms of block booking hotels, Mr O’Gorman said the Government is “certainly” looking at long-term block booking of hotel accommodation.

Niamh Kavanagh won the Eurovision Song Contest at the Green Glens Arena in Millstreet 1993.  Picture: RTÉ Stills Library

“I think that’s necessary to ensure that we have rooms for people when they arrive in the country and we’ve been doing that over the last few weeks,” he said.

However, Mr O’Gorman emphasised that accommodation for refugees staying in hotels is a “short-term solution".  “We’re looking to continue to grow the number of hotel rooms that we have, recognising the fact that we are likely to see increased numbers of people arrive in the days and weeks ahead,” he said.

The minister also added that the Defence Forces will be checking to see if accommodation people pledged through the Irish Red Cross is suitable for Ukrainian people to stay in.

The Government does not plan to pay people who take in Ukrainian refugees.

Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said that there had been some discussion about funding Irish families who take in Ukrainian people, as had been done in Britain. 

However, the Government is asking people to offer rooms for charitable reasons, rather than profit.

“What we're saying to people is that this is an altruistic thing… I can't rule out anything in the future, but at least for the moment, we've 20,000 people that are offering accommodation to people," he said:  

Nobody has asked for money at this stage and what we would say at this stage is that if we do have money, or people want to donate money, that's the best thing. 

The Government also doesn't envisage putting a cap on the numbers of people coming from Ukraine.

The Green Glens Arena was the venue for the Eurovision Song Contest final on May 17, 1993, when Niamh Kavanagh won with the song 'In Your Eyes'. Picture: Irish Examiner Archive

“The way the European regulation works is that anybody coming from Ukraine is being granted temporary protection in all 27 countries in the European Union, and no cap is being put on it,” Mr Varadkar added. 

Ireland is likely to have accepted 20,000 refugees by the end of the month, he said, admitting it would be “an enormous challenge”.

Mr Varadkar revealed over the weekend that he and his partner Matt Barrett have registered with the Irish Red Cross offering to take in refugees from Ukraine.

The Department of Foreign Affairs has confirmed that 40 Irish citizens are still in Ukraine, some of whom are thought to be couples who have surrogacy arrangements in the country.

Russian and Ukrainian forces were continuing to fight for control of Mariupol overnight. At least 902 civilians have been killed and 1,459 injured in Ukraine, the UN human rights office said yesterday.