Dublin to cut 84% financial aid, limit housing to Ukraine refugees

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
1 Feb 2024 10:56

Ireland's Social Protection Minister says this decision will include all refugees, regardless of when they arrived to the country.

Ukrainian refugees walk a bridge at the buffer zone with the border with Poland following the start of the war with Russia in March 2022. (AFP)

With no apparent timeline or end game for the conflict, countries have turned wary of funding Kiev's war efforts amid their struggling economies, prompting decisions affecting previously adopted support packages to the Eastern European country.

In a Wednesday announcement, Ireland's Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys told Parliament that welfare benefits to Ukranian refugees will be slashed by over 80%, while their stay in publicly provided housing in the country will now be limited.

“We may have to make the decision that anybody in state-provided accommodation, regardless of what date they arrived, they will receive a payment of €38.80,” Humphreys told the Assembly.

Ireland now hosts tens of thousands of Ukrainians who escaped the war with Russia that began in February 2022. The government currently provides housing, and a weekly allowance of €232 per week for job seekers.

Strapped for cash

Officials in Kiev had visible concerns over their own share of assistance cuts, which even saw the Ukrainian President not only announcing support for such measures, but also calling for the money to be given to his own government instead of refugees.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky requested last week that Berlin end financial support to refugees, explaining that “it would be better if Germany supported Ukrainians by giving money to the budget of Ukraine.”

Zelensky's statement came in line with Ukraine’s chief of military intelligence, Kirill Budanov, who pledged another counteroffensive this spring after the failed one in 2023.

According to top military officials, Kiev is planning to mobilize some 500,000 recruits to make up for lost army personnel, which have been estimated by Western experts to be almost 400,000 individuals.

The government is currently preparing legislation that would target men within the age of conscription that fled the country.

To pressure the men to come back to the country and join the war against Russia, Kiev urged Western countries to discontinue their aid to them if they refuse to so.

Mikhail Podoliak, a senior advisor to Zelenskty, said in December that these men should be given the choice to “either to get drafted or… lose certain opportunities granted to people that temporarily left Ukraine.”