Updated: 1.15pm. Additional reporting Vivienne Clarke.
The Government has reversed the controversial decision to relocate more than 135 Ukrainian women and children from a Killarney hotel to Westport, Co Mayo.
As the Irish Examiner reports, efforts will now be made to source alternative accommodation for the 134 or so families who were due to be bussed to Westport on Wednesday morning.
The decision comes after Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman and his officials were criticised for the “inhumane” treatment of the refugees.
There was considerable anger among locals in Killarney and within the Government at the removal of the migrants in order to make way for almost 200 males who have been bussed into Killarney from Citywest in Dublin.
Due to a sharp increase in the number of people seeking asylum in Ireland, the accommodation system is buckling.
The Mayor of Killarney Niall Kelleher said the town was coming up with solutions to the issue of Ukrainian women and children being moved from the Kerry town to Mayo.
Cllr Kelleher told RTÉ Radio’s Morning Ireland that the community had made great efforts to integrate the Ukrainian refugees into the community through assistance in finding jobs, access to medical care and school places for the children.
It was “very inhumane and worrying” that when solutions were brought to the attention of “the powers that be” that the decision had not been reversed.
At a public meeting in the town earlier this week a number of proposals were made involving holiday homes, hotels and Bed & Breakfasts, he said.
Ukrainian woman Dina told the programme that she had been very shocked with the news, especially the short notice which effectively gave them one day to prepare.
“A lot of our people got jobs, the younger people started their education, some got involved in the community in the Tidy Towns.
“We feel we are part of this community, we want to continue to be part of this community”.
'Retraumatising'
The Ukraine Civil Society Forum - a coalition of civil society groups including the Irish Refugee Council and the Immigrant Council of Ireland - has welcomed the U-turn, stating that relocating the families would have been "retraumatising".
"This situation is a symptom of an approach focused on bed management that does not bring into its decision-making the impact on vulnerable women and children and a wider policy in relation to refugees that neglects long term planning," the group said.
"Such a proposed move is retraumatising and would cause untold damage to the children. We need to ensure that this does not happen again."
The group added that while "the people of Killarney and their representatives saved the day", this is not an isolated incident.
"We need everybody, working together, planning strategically, maintaining standards and never forgetting the people at the centre of this war whose world has been upended.
"As a nation we can provide stable shelter so children can go to school and parents can work if we have medium term planning, humane systems and we support and resource local communities," the forum said.
