Ireland will this week consider making cuts to state support for asylum seekers and refugees, including those who arrived from Ukraine, in a bid to bring the system more in line with other European countries, Prime Minister Simon Harris said on Monday.
\nJust over 100,000 Ukrainians have fled to Ireland since Russia\u2019s invasion in February 2022, while the number of asylum seekers from the rest of the world almost trebled from pre-pandemic levels to more than 13,000 in 2022 and 2023. So far this year, the number has jumped to 7,700.
\nThat has made immigration a much bigger political issue in the country of 5.3 million people, which is struggling to house refugees in the middle of a housing supply crisis.
\n\u201cIt certainly is my intention that we will see changes in a number of areas that do inject what I think Irish people believe has been lacking, which is that common sense approach,\u201d Harris told Newstalk radio ahead of Tuesday\u2019s cabinet meeting.
\n\u201cWe need to look at welfare consistency. We need to look at the contribution that people who have (refugee) status should make to accommodation. We need to look at making sure that anybody at work is working legally, that there are more workplace inspections.\u201d
\nHarris said specifically that there should be a consistency of approach to people who come from Ukraine and that the support should not be based on when they arrived.
\nIreland previously slashed the allowance for Ukrainian refugees using state accommodation who arrived after mid-March this year to 38.80 euros ($41.84) per week from 220 euros and put a 90-day limit on the time they can remain housed by the state.
\nThe changes did not apply to the 70,000 Ukrainians who were already in some form of state accommodation.
\n($1 = 0.9273 euros)
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Ireland is considering making cuts to state support for asylum seekers and refugees, including those from Ukraine, to align with other European countries. The number of asylum seekers in Ireland has increased significantly, making immigration a bigger political issue. Prime Minister Simon Harris is looking into welfare consistency, legal work, and housing contributions for refugees. Specifically, support for Ukrainian refugees arriving after mid-March was reduced to 38.80 euros per week with a 90-day limit on state housing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":11672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1521,1447,1794,2726,3345,3520,5255,2229,2515,9046,6654,1795,2554,1130,7776,1346,5175,1792,531,720,19,7967,9853,6001,3499,1358,17,1180,8945,6404,6305,7793,18],"class_list":["post-11671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other","tag-1521","tag-accommodation","tag-asylum","tag-asylum-seekers","tag-cabinet","tag-cabinet-meeting","tag-crisis","tag-european-countries","tag-february","tag-house","tag-housing","tag-immigration","tag-inspections","tag-ireland","tag-march","tag-meeting","tag-pandemic","tag-prime-minister","tag-refugees","tag-rest","tag-russia","tag-state","tag-state-support","tag-struggling","tag-supply-crisis","tag-support","tag-ukraine","tag-ukrainian","tag-ukrainians","tag-welfare","tag-who","tag-workplace","tag-world"],"acf":{"keyphrase":"","keywords":"","sourceimg":"","country-category":""},"yoast_head":"\n