The CEO of the Irish Immigrant Council, Brian Killoran, has spoken of the panic being experienced by Ukrainian representatives in Ireland over Cabinet plans to reduce payments to people in protected accommodation.
“There's been a lot of confusion, a lot of disappointment, and the most striking word I've seen from one of the Ukrainian representatives that we work with is panic. The panic that it's spreading throughout the Ukrainian community in Ireland today,” he told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.
“Why are we as a country in a position where we are destabilising that community here where they are making every effort over the last number of months, in the last two years to integrate themselves, to get working in Ireland. The war in Ukraine continues. The Russian aggression in Ukraine continues.
"The Ukrainian community feel that there is no safe place in Ukraine for them to return to. And they are making every effort in this country to integrate themselves and become self-sufficient.”
Responding to a suggestion that the proposal would make the system equal for all protection applicants, Mr Killoran said that making the system “equally bad” for everybody in such circumstances was not the answer.
"It had been well documented that prior to the invasion of Ukraine the payments made to people in direct provision were “essentially poverty level payments, that a family or somebody with a child, nobody can survive in any kind of a dignified manner on those levels of support.
“So rather than try and bring equality to the system by raising all ships, we are going beyond even a medium level. We're going to go into the lowest supports that we can provide. So I don't think bringing it down to that level is effectively the answer.
"It disproportionately risks impacting women, children, the elderly. It disproportionately risks raising poverty levels among the (Ukrainian) community."
Mr Killoran said that rather than deal with the “bigger, overarching problem of housing”, the Government was instead “taking aim at the softer target” of refugees.
“We're kind of piling problems here, problems and that are coming into the next weeks and months, rather than building solutions that actually allow for a normalisation of this, the normalisation of the situation and a soft landing, essentially, for people who've come from a very traumatic situation.
"So I think we're going to see a lot of problems and complexities in the next weeks and months as these policies play out. And we really have to question that this is the right direction for us to go as a country.”
