Government expecting rise in Ukrainians coming to Ireland ahead of social welfare cut

Roderic O’Gorman said: “What my focus is right now is implementing this new regime for new Ukrainians arriving in the country." Picture: Jason Clarke

The Government is anticipating a surge in the number of Ukrainians arriving in Ireland in the coming weeks ahead of a cut to social welfare and reduced State accommodation.

Integration Minister Roderic O’Gorman said the new rules which will see newly arrived Ukrainians receive €38.80 instead of €232 and an offer of just 90 days in State accommodation will likely not come into force until the end of the month.

He said his department are working on a detailed communication campaign to inform Ukrainians who are considering coming to Ireland that the offering of accommodation and social welfare is now limited.

Fresh figures reveal for the seven days to the end of January 28, there were 628 Ukrainians offered temporary protection. This compares to 390 for the previous week.

He said: “I think it's likely that those higher numbers will probably be repeated again this week.”

When asked if the increased numbers are expected until the new rules come into place at the end of the month, Mr O’Gorman said: “I think it's likely that we will see higher numbers certainly than we saw over the Christmas period.” 

This is despite ministers dismissing that there would be a spike in the number of Ukrainians arriving in Ireland before the new measures take effect.

In the Dáil on Wednesday, Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys has said the Government might "down the road" have to reduce welfare payments for all Ukrainians staying in State accommodation. She said the EU's Temporary Directive ends in March 2025 and the Government needs flexibility as it starts to plan for that.

When asked about Ms Humphreys comments, Mr O’Gorman said the State is not currently looking for any changes to Ukrainians who are already here. However, he said the system in place is open for the Government to make changes.

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He said: “What my focus is right now is implementing this new regime for new Ukrainians arriving in the country. We've made changes before as you know, we set up a contribution regime about nine months ago where Ukrainians make a small contribution to their costs.

“We have changed the regime before and it is open for us to change it in future obviously, always working within the confines of the temporary projection,” he said.

Mr O’Gorman also said the revised white paper which will set out how the State moves from an emergency to long-term response to accommodate international protection applicants is still a number of weeks away before going to Cabinet for sign-off.

He said: “I want to bring forward a plan where, over the next number of years, we build a core of State elements of accommodation. This isn't going to solve the short-term accommodation crisis, and I'm very clear with that. As much as Minister McEntee is making really significant reforms to the processing of those in the international protection process, I believe I need to initiate reforms to the accommodation side."