Culture
30 Mar 22

A temporary tent village will be used to house Ukrainian refugees coming to Ireland

The Taoiseach has said that a tented accommodation in Meath may be urgently needed in the coming weeks due to the high volume of Ukrainian refugees.

The Cabinet has been told that crisis measures such as tented villages are necessary to house Ukrainian refugees arriving in Ireland. The government has accepted that the temporary housing will be needed on top of normal accommodation structures due to the large influx of Ukrainians coming into the country.

The Department of Housing is urgently developing the temporary structure proposals to help address those needs at a long-term scale but the Taoiseach has said that a tented accommodation at the Gormanston camp in Meath may be urgently needed in the coming weeks.

Some of the cost will be covered by the remaining €2.5bn in humanitarian aid while the rest will be offset by the Covid contingency fund set aside in the budget for 2022.

According to Public Expenditure Minister Michael McGrath, projections of the cost to the State are currently at €400m for every 10,000 people who need assistance for a year. The number of Ukranian refugees currently in Ireland is at 14,611.

The Citywest Convention Centre has moved into action providing an overflow for when a high volume of arrivals occur at the Dublin airport.

Additional overflow facilities are being put into place in Rosslare Port and the Millstreet Arena. Together they will have a capacity of more than 400 people and is on target for use from April 18.

The Russian state has now threatened retaliation following the Taoiseach's decision to expel four senior diplomats from the embassy in Dublin. Micheál Martin told the Dáil the decision came after advice that the individuals' behaviour were not "in accordance with the international standards” expected of embassy staff.

The Russian embassy said in a statement that the move “will not go unanswered”.

“The embassy rejects such qualifications of the work of our diplomats,” it said.

"This is an arbitrary, groundless decision, which can only deteriorate further Russian-Irish relations, already damaged by the Irish participation in illegitimate EU sanctions against Russia.”