'Status quo' for Ukrainian refugees in Ireland must change, says Simon Harris 

Simon Harris said while Ireland has responded well to the crisis, it was necessary to change the arrangements for Ukrainians coming here fleeing the war.

The "status quo" for Ukrainian refugees in Ireland must change, the Higher Education Minister has said.

A Coalition row has broken out over plans to limit State accommodation offerings for refugees to three months.

At Cabinet on Tuesday, Integration Minister Roderic O’Gorman was accused by Tánaiste Micheál Martin, during a 40-minute “heated” exchange between senior ministers, of trying to push responsibility onto Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien through his “90-day plan”.

Speaking in Dublin on Thursday, Simon Harris said while Ireland has responded well to the crisis, it was necessary to change the arrangements for Ukrainians coming here fleeing the war.

Ireland has risen, I believe to the humanitarian challenge presented by war on the continent of Europe, in a really quite incredible way. We have welcomed in nearly 100,000 people.

"We've welcomed them into our communities, we've supported them, we've seen them in our education system, we've seen that in our schools — tens of thousands of people in further education, learning English and other things.

"But I think what is also absolutely clear, you always have to be honest with this, the status quo can't continue. We have to be supportive of Ukraine, but we also have to look at the entire package that we can provide to make sure it's sustainable. Because we want to be able to continue to support, so it is done from a place of good as many European countries are doing.

"And we've seen this already done in some areas around medical cards and the likes in recent months. So we are not the first European country, in fact, I would reckon we're one of the very last European countries to actually look and say we want to continue to support Ukraine but how do we make sure what we're doing is sustainable."

Support for O'Gorman

Mr Harris offered support to Mr O'Gorman, saying he was "quite rightly" raising the issue because it has become a real challenge.

"I think what Minister O'Gorman was doing was quite rightly highlighting to colleagues a real issue that we need to grapple with. And I think the responsible thing for all of us to do as a Government now is await formal proposals and I do think it makes sense when we're looking at a formal proposal for that to consider all aspects.

"I think there's an opportunity here to look at how do we make sure the offering we can provide to Ukrainians is honest and sustainable for the weeks, months and potentially years ahead."

Meanwhile, Mr Martin said any suggestion of a row had been "exaggerated" but conceded that there had been a "robust discussion" at Cabinet on Mr O'Gorman's plans.

"So, I think it's a bit exaggerated to say there was a row. I think there have been many challenging issues that have come before us," he said.