THE IRISH GOVERNMENT will carry out checks to ensure that it’s appropriate for people offering to house Ukrainian refugees to do so.

You can register your interest in helping refugees who arrive in Ireland here. The Irish Red Cross is leading the refugee effort here alongside the Government.

Speaking on Morning Ireland, Minister for Integration Roderic O’Gorman said that his department is currently developing a policy to make sure that vulnerable refugees are housed in suitable accommodation. 

However, he would not be drawn on whether or not background checks or garda vetting of prospective homeowners would be done. 

“There’ll be checks undertaken of all accommodation offers to ensure that the accommodation is habitable particularly where accommodation is shared, I think it is important that there are checks,” O’Gorman said.  

The portal only opened to the public yesterday but the volume of demand for it caused the site to crash. Over 1,300 people had registered their interest in housing refugees before the site was taken down. 

O’Gorman explained: “We had a huge surge of demand from the Irish people last night, people looking to register their support for Ukrainian refugees. And I just want, on behalf of the Irish government and on the Red Cross, to really acknowledge that strong sense of solidarity that Irish people are showing. 1,300 pledges came in last night alone.

“So, we took the website down for a small time last night just to give a better bandwidth and better capacity and it’s back up and running again this morning.”

The United Nations said on Sunday that 1.5 million have fled Ukraine since the invasion of the country by Russia, stating that it is the fastest growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.

O’Gorman added that the Government will seek to put people up in hotel accommodation also but that this was a short-term option only and longer term options are still being hashed out. 

“Hotel accomodation is the short term response but we recognise that this is going to need a long-term response as well. So right now, my department, working in conjunction with all other government departments, are looking at the range of long term accommodation options that are open to us and nothing’s off the table at this stage.” 

The portal is not just for those who have accommodation to offer, but is open to anyone who has something to offer in terms of aid, such as meals or education supplies, for example.

Department officials will get in touch with those that register with the portal within weeks, said the minister. 

Secretary General of the Irish Red Cross Liam O’Dwyer said the charity is “keen to ensure that refugees from Ukraine experience a warm welcome from communities throughout Ireland as they recover from the trauma of recent days”.