A TD has called for Ireland to send a team of experts to Poland to be stationed by the Ukrainian border.
Former army ranger and Independent TD Cathal Berry has said it is important to for the Government to have "eyes and ears" on the ground.
"The Department of Foreign Affairs have this panel of people called the Rapid Response Corps... about 100 people, and they are maintained on a panel, and they have specialist skills in linguistics, in medical, in logistics," Mr Berry told Newstalk.
"Two, or three or four of those could very easily be mobilised and given a three or six-month contract and sent out there on the ground.
"It's very important to have boots on the ground as we learned in the Kabul evacuation last year."
The Kildare South TD recently travelled to the border with Independent Senator Gerard Craughwell.
As reported in The Irish Times, Mr Berry has been advocating for personnel from the Irish State to be based at the border to report back to the Government and to aid Irish citizens and refugees who want to travel to Ireland.
“They could hire a car and move around, move up to the border, and back to the processing centre, having a liaison function primarily,” Mr Berry said.
“They can be used as direct contacts by Ministers or senior civil servants. It’s very important that accurate information and up-to-minute information is being sent back to Dublin because that is the basis of making good decisions.”
However, speaking about his visit to border, Mr Berry said his takeaway was that most of the refugees want to stay in Poland.
“They want to stay local, wait for a ceasefire and go back home,” he explained.
“They are not that keen to go further into the EU at all. They may want to go to Germany because it’s closer and a rich country. Poland is their preference and going to Germany is the next best thing.”
