Ireland is considering further cuts to benefits for Ukrainian refugees

Ireland is considering making further cuts to support and benefits for Ukrainian refugees as it struggles to accommodate rising numbers of migrants entering the country.

Ministers will discuss immigration in Dublin on Thursday afternoon, a day after Rishi Sunak and Simon Harris, the Irish prime minister, clashed over claims that asylum seekers were crossing the border from Northern Ireland to escape the Rwanda scheme.

Tensions over immigration are high in Ireland, a country of about 5.1 million that is struggling with a housing crisis and has welcomed more than 104,000 Ukrainian refugees since Putin’s illegal invasion.

On April 12 this year alone, more than 6,000 people applied for asylum in Ireland. If that rate continues, Ireland would have a record number of more than 20,000 asylum applications by the end of 2024. The previous record was 13,000 in 2004.

Ireland is on the borderline of support

Dublin has claimed that up to 90 percent of asylum seekers have crossed the border into Britain, but this is disputed.

Last year, Ireland cut its benefits for newly arrived Ukrainian refugees, saying it was reaching the limits of the support it could provide to migrants and began using tented accommodation to house asylum seekers.

It cut payments for newly arrived Ukrainians in state housing from £188.19 to £33.19 per week and placed a 90-day limit on the time they can have government housing.

It also stepped up support for migrants to make the country more comparable to Britain and other Western European countries, amid fears that the more generous offer would act as a magnet.

‘Slum’ dismantled

The Irish Times reported that further cuts to support for Ukrainians would be among the topics discussed at the meeting on migration, after police on Wednesday dismantled a ‘slum’ of tents housing migrants surrounding the asylum application office in the center of Dublin was created. .

The plan to further reduce support could cause tensions between Ireland’s three-party coalition government of centre-right Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil parties and the Green Party. The Greens have reservations about the need for further cuts as more and more Ukrainians return home from Ireland.

Mr Harris has announced plans to deploy 100 extra police officers to border areas and called on Mr Sunak to uphold an agreement signed in 2020 on the return of migrants between Britain and Ireland.