The revelation that the Irish taxpayer has been funding expensive repairs to “premium” cars for Ukrainians was raised in the Dáil last week by Ken O’Flynn, a newly-elected TD with Independent Ireland.
O’Flynn asked Tánaiste Simon Harris about the “reported payments to Ukrainian refugees for vehicle repairs, including sums ranging from €400 to €7,000” – asking if the payments were being sourced from exceptional needs payments of the Department of Social Welfare or from humanitarian funding, similar to that “of €1 million per month for cats and dogs from Ukraine” that had previously been spent.
He also asked if Harris could clarify whether those payments are available to IPAS refugees – adding “we know that 800,000 Irish citizens have left these shores since 2008 to live in countries such as Australia and Canada. I am not aware of any other government in the world that is repairing people’s cars, putting new tyres on them and putting engines in their cars.”
An Tánaiste did not like this line of questioning at all. At All. And so he rose with the now-familiar Harris Furrowed Brow and in acid tones accused O’Flynn of dog whistling, which is establishment-speak for being a low-down cur who presumes to ask questions about issues the government would rather were only bathed in sunshine and rainbows.
“We are helping people from Ukraine who fled a war,” Harris said, in that typical virtue-signalling positioning which seeks to frame the questioner as a heartless fecker uninterested in the lofty humanitarian goals of the same government which can’t find relatively miniscule sums of funding for children with mental health issues or a miserly €60,000 for a community scheme which provided lifts to elderly people for essential health acre.
Never a man to miss an opportunity, Neale Richmond – Fine Gael’s man in South Dublin – stuck his oar in. “Deputy O’Flynn should not shake his head. He should dog-whistle somewhere else. He knows what he was doing,” he cried.
Yes, thundered Harris. “Shame on the Deputy. He was dog-whistling.”
It’s like watching a badly-produced local panto with the hammiest of ham actors. The simmering outrage on display because of what, exactly? That Ken O’Flynn asked a perfectly reasonable question, because, yes, most people would like to know if even more of their taxes are being spent on payments which are not available to Irish people.
As Ben Scallan then revealed on the same day as the Panto in the Dáil, taxpayer money can in fact be used for car repairs for eligible persons, including Ukrainian refugees, according to the Department of Social Protection.
Responding to queries arising from a viral social media video, the Department stated on Wednesday that although there is no specific scheme exclusively dedicated to car repairs for Ukrainians or any other group, Additional Needs Payments (ANPs) may be granted under the Supplementary Welfare Allowance (SWA) scheme to cover essential costs, including vehicle repairs.
“There is no scheme in place to support Ukrainians or indeed any persons solely for car repairs. However under the Supplementary Welfare Allowance (SWA) scheme, the Department may make an Additional Needs Payment (ANP) to help meet essential expenditure which an eligible person could not reasonably be expected to meet from their weekly income, and which is deemed necessary,” the Department stated.
Asked on what scale Ukrainians were having their car repairs paid for by the State, the Department replied: “An ANP may be provided to assist with car repairs. However it is not possible to extract data solely related to ANPs provided towards car repairs.”
The problem for the Department – and the government – is that the garage owner in question who made the viral video was pretty certain that the payment was not being made to Irish citizens and was a form of assistance that only seemed available to Ukrainians and perhaps to other asylum seekers.
However, it doesn’t seem likely from the answer given to Carol Nolan TD today that the Department will be able to extract data solely related to payments provided towards car repairs as they say this information is not recorded or collated.
Nolan had asked the Minister for Social Protection if beneficiaries of temporary protection have had personal car repair works funded through any payment mechanism provided by his Department; if so, to provide details of costs and payment numbers from 2022 to date. They replied:
An Additional Needs Payment may be provided to assist with car repairs. In considering such an application, the assessment of the requirement would include investigation of the necessities for the use of the vehicle and whether alternative sources of transport are available to the person and their household, such as another family vehicle or public transport, was the reply.
But – and there’s always a ‘but’ when it come to accountability in this country – the Department also confessed: “It is not possible to extract data solely related to Additional Needs Payments provided towards car repairs as this information is not recorded or collated.” As ever, no-one knows what’s happening because no data is collected, and therefore Simon Harris can hiss away about dog whistles instead of having to explain why his government was repeatedly so reckless and careless with other people’s money.
It is, in fact, only because of the persistence of a handful of TDs that the extent of that reckless spending was made known – and the extent to which Ukrainians and other people new to the parish are entitled to more than Irish citizens in respect of some payments and supports.
Thus it was shown that Ireland had the highest weekly social welfare payments to Ukrainian refugees in the EU, and that was certainly a pull factor, one that likely led to the 112,000 plus arrivals to this tiny country. When Carol Nolan raised concerns regarding our ability to cope with those numbers, she was attacked by the Minister of Housing in the Dáil and told she was undermining social cohesion.
Marc MacSharry, who has now left politics, also raised the issue of discrimination against Irish people when he forced a debate on the policy of ensuring that third-level students from Ukraine can go to university for free in Ireland, and avail of free accommodation, without means testing – supports not automatically available to Irish students, who have to pay the Student’s Contribution of between €2,000 and €3,000 per year and undergo a means test for grants. A higher stipend of €1,150 per month was available to Ukrainian students.
More recently, it has been argued that the €800 per month tax-free payments to landlords for providing Ukrainians with accommodation also creates “serious problems of unfairness in the private rented sector” – something that is creating “tensions” in constituencies.
Harris can bluster all he wants, and dispense accusations of dog-whistling to smear the person asking perfectly reasonable questions, but it doesn’t change the fact that most people want the system to be compassionate but fair. The point Ken O’Flynn was making was in regard to fairness: why should people who have newly arrived to the country be entitled to support that is denied to the citizens who have lived, worked and paid taxes here?
“This is typical of what we have come to expect from the Tánaiste and Government. In fact, I have rarely seen a politician who so delights in jumping up on his high horse at every available opportunity. Well, here is one Cork horse who will kick back, because I am not going to sit there and take lectures from this hapless, so-called leader for simply for doing my job and seeking accountability for the use of public funds.”
“I want clarity on this matter. I want an evidenced based debate on the use of social protection funding. I want to know if Petro and Marina from Kyiv are having their cars repairs put on the Irish bill while Paddy and Mary are having their Additional Needs Payments and Humanitarian Assistance Payments refused.”
“I want at the very least to ensure that there is parity of treatment, and that we are not being taken for absolute mugs by a Department that has been generous to a fault with taxpayers’ money, as the farcical spend of €1,000,000 per month on accommodation for pets of Ukrainian Beneficiaries of Temporary Protection in 2022 clearly demonstrated.”
“The Tánaiste can accuse me all he likes of dog-whistling. No one is falling for that nonsense anymore. It means nothing to me, and it will certainly not deter me from asking questions on behalf of the Irish taxpayer,”
Harris should also realise that not only is public mood shifting, but there are additional voices in the Dáil asking relevant questions in relation to the billions in taxpayer funding the government has lavished on our broken immigration policy.
In the same session, Paul Lawless of Aontú, another new voice in the Dáil, raised the entirely detrimental policy of allowing asylum centres to be developed by circumventing the ordinary planning laws that otherwise must be adhered to – saying that wealthy accommodation providers were by passing planning laws with no engagement with local communities.