Face it: we all saw it coming from the very start of the war in Ukraine. Most with a megaphone just didn’t have the courage to say it ahead of time.
As Ireland continues to accept thousands of Ukrainian refugees every few days, the government is being warned in secret briefings that the State is on the verge of running out of accommodation by the end of the month. The government’s own sources believe that come May, there will be 10,000 Ukrainians in the country for whom we have no accommodation.
A stark warning given to Cabinet this week on a looming accommodation crisis facing the Government 👇
Nowhere for 10,000 Ukrainian refugees to stay by end of month, Cabinet told in secret briefing https://t.co/MTxBl4AAjo
— Hugh O'Connell (@oconnellhugh) April 7, 2022
After putting refugees in convents, commercial buildings, and so on, the government have already exhausted hotels as a place to put these individuals.
State has ‘probably reached limit’ of hotels for Ukrainian refugees, O’Gorman says https://t.co/chA5PqD3E5
— The Irish Times (@IrishTimes) April 10, 2022
Additionally, the Taoiseach has expressed his dismay that less people have offered their homes to Ukrainians than the government had anticipated. The government is even now considering offering people money to accept Ukrainians because the State is running out of options.
Taoiseach admits number of people offering rooms 'not as large as originally anticipated' https://t.co/gyCtp7Q3AN pic.twitter.com/FnIRokkMTV
— Extra.ie (@ExtraIRL) April 11, 2022
Minister Roderic O’Gorman told RTÉ that the government may soon have to start putting people in “larger accommodation centres.” Presumably this would entail just throwing a load of bunk beds into a gymnasium or something along those lines rather than everyone getting their own room.
However, what really puts the situation into perspective is the following:
To date, Ireland has only accepted around 21,000 Ukrainians, and only 13,000 of these are in State accommodation.
The reason this is noteworthy is, as you’ll no doubt remember, this is the same government that pledged to house ever-increasing numbers of refugees over several weeks, until they eventually reached the jaw-dropping figure of 200,000 – double the number that France and the USA were receiving.
Ireland taking twice as many Ukrainian refugees as France, USA
As I previously reported:
“Britain, with a population of 67.2 million (13 times that of Ireland), has given 12,400 Ukrainian refugees permission to enter the country.
While Germany has taken in 239,000 refugees so far, this is equivalent to 0.2% of their 83.2 million population. Comparatively, Ireland’s 200,000 amounts to 4% of our population – meaning the impact will be 20 times greater on Ireland proportionally.”
And yet, with only 21,000 in the country (and really only 13,000 if you only count those in State accommodation) the government is absolutely reeling and can barely tread water as-is. We’re at 10% or less of their proposed number, and the State is already on the verge of having thousands of people with nowhere to live in a matter of weeks.
Based on this reality, does anyone seriously think Ireland could house 200,000 refugees? Does anyone think that Ireland could house 100,000 refugees? Or even 50,000? It’s Peter Pan Neverland fantasy tripe.
Notably, Gript was actually the first publication to say that this would end in disaster back when it was first proposed.
And so, in the face of this imminent disaster, you would reasonably expect a government to sit back and say “Wow lads, we got this wrong. We thought we could house 200,000, but we obviously can’t. We’ve bitten off more than we can chew.”
But that’s not what they’ve said – not at all. In fact, this week, Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien says he’s upping the figure from 200,000, to infinity:
“On Newstalk Breakfast this morning, Darragh O’Brien said a cap on the amount of refugees Ireland will accept is “off the table”.
…
Minister O’Brien told Ciara that the Ukraine refugee crisis was always going to be challenge – but there is no prospect of limiting the amount of people Ireland will accept.“That is off the table,” he said.”
Even in the face of obvious disaster, they have doubled down. They categorically refuse to accept that the country will not be able to handle this.
I mean, the country wasn’t able to handle the homeless people and aspiring homeowners it already had. Where on earth would we expect 200,000 extra accommodation units to come from? It’s patently absurd on its face.
The government has a serious problem accepting it made a mistake – not just on this issue, but on many issues.
Take carbon tax, for example, which they insist on putting up, even in the face of an energy crisis, incurring the wrath of the general public.
Obviously part of this is to placate the Greens and hold the coalition together. But no doubt part of it is also saving face.
They made the climate issue the be-all-and-end-all, and went on for years about how important it was to have things like carbon tax and shutting down fossil fuel energy sources.
Now, if they cancel the tax at the last second, and start re-opening all the power stations they shut down, they look like prize eejits. As much as people hate what’s currently happening, they feel like they’ll look even more incompetent if they reverse the decision. They’d be forced to tacitly admit “Yeah, sorry, that wasn’t very bright of us.”
To their credit they did ultimately drop Covid restrictions. But for the longest time during the pandemic they continued to double down on measures like Covid certs, even despite the overwhelming evidence that they do absolutely nothing to stem the tide of infections.
After making the biggest deal out of the vaccine, with Taoiseach Micheál Martin saying it was “our way out” of restrictions, Dr. Tony Holohan eventually admitted the jab was “not performing as well as hoped.”
And yet what was the solution? Why, to double down with third and fourth doses – they even flirted with the idea of annual doses. Because they couldn’t accept their plan had failed.
Similarly, if they say “We’re going to let 200,000 Ukrainian refugees in” and a small fraction of that number leads to chaos, they feel like they have to double down for the same reason. To walk back that figure would be to admit they didn’t think it through when they made the initial commitment.
They are captains on the Titanic, and they are determined to stay the chosen course to prove they are not incompetent navigators – even as the iceberg gets bigger and closer in real time. And we all inevitably end up paying the price.