The government is set to bring into effect new rules which would see the amount of weekly social welfare payments made to Ukrainian beneficiaries of temporary protection in state accommodation cut substantially.
The weekly payment made to Ukrainians who moved to Ireland under the temporary protection scheme was €232 per week per adult but is set to be lowered to €38.80 for adults, and €29.80 for children regardless of the date of arrival into Ireland for those being accommodated by the state.
The cuts will take effect with a 12 week lead in period.
In December last year the Government announced cuts to payments for newly arrived Ukrainians which were to take effect from last March, but now the cuts are to extend indiscriminately.
Ireland had been paying the highest rate of social welfare to Ukrainians under the temporary protection directive previously set at €220 weekly while other EU states and the UK paid between €7.90 and €131.45 per week.
As Gript reported in January, Ukrainian refugees living in Ireland have received over €750,000,000 in social welfare payments since the start of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in early 2022.
The Irish Mirror reported the figures which were released from the Department of Social protection showing that €754,169,000 was paid from March 2022 to the end of last month to BTOPs (beneficiaries of temporary protection) from Ukraine.
Of this €481.6 million was paid in job seekers allowance while €81.4 million was paid to persons over the age of 66 years through the state’s pension scheme.
€60.4 million was paid out in child benefit with Ukrainian refugees receiving €140 per month per child.
The supplementary welfare allowance scheme paid out €21.4 million with €2.6 million of this amount designated for clothing.
€12.7 million was paid in Disability Allowance over the same period, as well as almost €6.4 million in Carer’s Allowance.
Over 100,000 Ukrainians have come to Ireland under the temporary protection directive since March 2022, with over 70,000 accommodated by the state.
Last March Gript reported the results of a survey taken among BOTPs in Ireland which said that 53% of those surveyed said they wished to stay in Ireland permanently.
This represented an increase from 41 percent to 53 percent according to the largest survey to date of Ukrainians living in Ireland, carried out by the charity Ukrainian Action in January.
8,329 Ukrainians were represented in the survey, which gained responses from 4,678 adults and 3,651 children living in Ukraine, via social media, Telegram chats and groups, personal messages, and printed QR codes. The total number of respondents represents 10 per cent of all Ukrainians who are staying in Ireland.
Responses were received from all counties in Ireland, ranging from Dublin (902 responses) to Longford (38 responses) for the survey, which is the third carried out by Ukrainian Action.
Read the full report here.