MINISTER SOCIAL PROTECTION Heather Humphreys is examining the reform of social welfare supports for refugees from Ukraine, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has confirmed,

When asked for specifics on the plan, he said currently there’s no proposal on the table, but said other EU countries have lower social welfare rates for Ukrainians than Ireland. 

The Journal reported yesterday that the government was revisiting the proposal of reducing social welfare supports for those arriving from Ukraine. 

It comes amidst converstry over a Cabinet disagreement over proposals to also introduce time limited accommodation for Ukrainian refugees, with concerns raised about the number of Ukrainians arriving into the country having already been located in other European states. 

Varadkar said it “makes sense that we align what we offer in Ireland to what other Western European countries are offering because of the issue of secondary movements”.

“Other countries have lower rates and other countries limit the time for which they offer any social welfare support. In Ireland its indefinite – that’s not the case in a lot of European countries,” he added. 

“It is not going to be a case of just working out whatever the EU average is, you know, we have a higher cost of living, for example than other countries and other countries pay welfare rates differently to refugees depending on whether or not they’re provided accommodation.

“In Ireland we provide accommodation to people who come to Ireland from Ukraine and also full social welfare. That doesn’t happen for Irish people, in general, and wouldn’t be the norm in other European countries,” he said. 

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When asked about Finance Michael McGrath’s comments in relation to the pressure any changes could put on the rental sector, the Taoiseach said there’s no case of anyone being forced into the rental sector.

“It is the case already that a lot of people have come to Ireland from Ukraine find their own accommodation, a lot of them are working, some avail of rent supplements. So I think having an extra 100,000 people in your country is always going to have an impact on housing, education, that is just a statement of the obvious,” he said. 

Any of the planned reforms to policy will have to be assessed to take into account the impact it might have on housing, on schools, on healthcare and on everything else, the Taoiseach said.

“So that work is really still ongoing. It can’t just be about accommodation. We have to look at the whole thing in the round,” he said.