As the old song doesn\u2019t quite have it, compassion for Ukrainians is a treasure when first it\u2019s new. \u201cBut as love grows older, love grows colder\/ And fades away like the morning dew.\u201d The State loved our Ukrainians, but it has gone awfully cold on them. Enthusiasm has dribbled into ennui.<\/p>\n
I remember listening to Morning Ireland in March 2022, a month after Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine<\/a>. Then-minister for agriculture Charlie McConalogue was talking about how Ireland was going to respond to the consequent refugee crisis<\/a>. We would, he said, take in as many as 200,000 people<\/a>.<\/p>\n At that point, my heart sank. This was, evidently, an Irish paroxysm of enthusiasm, an uncontrolled emission of bonhomie and affability \u2013 entirely sincere and entirely unreal. Everyone knew Ireland wasn\u2019t going to take in 200,000 Ukrainian refugees for the simple reason that it couldn\u2019t. <\/p>\n That\u2019s the population of Limerick and Galway cities put together. Ireland had \u2013 and has \u2013 a huge housing crisis and almost every aspect of public provision, from healthcare to transport, is under massive strain. <\/p>\n So if the Government was saying that it was going to take 200,000, you just knew that this was not a plan or a proposition. It was an expression of our self-infatuation with our image as the world\u2019s most compassionate nation. The not-very-hidden subtext was: aren\u2019t we a lovely people all the same?<\/p>\n To be fair, Ireland did take about half the fantastical number projected in the immediate aftermath of the invasion. (About 120,000 came here at some stage and approximately 84,000 have stayed.) And Irish families and communities responded not just with heartfelt generosity but with real practical help.<\/p>\n Some of this response was and is almost miraculous. I spend most of my time these days in the small village of Ballyvaughan in Co Clare<\/a> and I attend the medical centre there. The village has a population of 361 people. <\/p>\n A study by<\/a> the University of Limerick\u2019s school of medicine found that between March 22nd, 2022, and February 22nd, 2024, the Ballyvaughan medical centre acquired 491 Ukrainians as new patients.<\/p>\n [\u00a0Ireland\u2019s refugee hotels: \u2018We have more Ukrainians than Irish people in Ballyvaughan now\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n They have high levels of medical need \u2013 they required 3,551 consultations. About a quarter of them suffered hypertension and\/or cardiovascular disease. There are also high incidences of depression and (perhaps because of proximity to Chernobyl<\/a>) thyroid problems.<\/p>\n How could a small medical centre in a small rural village possibly cope with this influx of demand from traumatised people who have been violently displaced from everything they know? The answer is: magnificently. I\u2019m in awe of the way the staff at the centre have managed to take the strain, integrating Ukrainian medical practitioners, treating the refugees with dignity and compassion and \u2013 just as importantly \u2013 avoiding the creation of a local narrative of the natives being \u201cswamped\u201d.<\/p>\n And this same spirit of practical fellow-feeling has been evident all over the country, in schools and sports clubs and churches and community organisations \u2013 and especially in homes. As of last February, close to 19,000 Irish families were hosting nearly 44,000 Ukrainians in their own homes. <\/p>\n Even without the fantastical numbers projected in 2022, the scale of this local effort has been remarkable. It\u2019s been characterised not by virtue signalling, but by bloody hard work. And \u2013 though this may be part of the problem \u2013 it has been heavily concentrated in the west of Ireland.<\/p>\n In Jim O\u2019Callaghan\u2019s<\/a> Dublin Bay South constituency, Ukrainian refugees currently make up less than half of 1 per cent of the population. Where I am writing from, in north Clare, they make up more than 5 per cent. In Glenties, it\u2019s also 5 per cent; in Connemara 3 per cent; in Kenmare an extraordinary 7 per cent. <\/p>\n [\u00a0\u2018We are abandoned\u2019: Ukrainian family with permission to stay but nowhere to goOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n So it\u2019s mostly the people of small rural towns and villages on the western seaboard who have made this thing work. They\u2019re the ones who have salved the nation\u2019s conscience. Taking in refugees is Ireland\u2019s contribution to the European response to Vladimir Putin\u2019s war of aggression \u2013 and it\u2019s the west that has been most awake to it.<\/p>\n But Dublin officialdom is now bored with it all. Emotional spurts don\u2019t sustain themselves. The war of attrition has gone on too long. Outrage and empathy have both faded away like the morning dew.<\/p>\n It makes sense that the Government should gradually reduce the overall level of supports for Ukrainian refugees. Just over 30,000<\/a> of them now have jobs in the Irish economy, so they\u2019re able in broad terms to support themselves. It\u2019s worth noting, however, that most of them are employed in jobs that don\u2019t match their qualifications: they have mean weekly earnings of just \u20ac573. That doesn\u2019t go far in the Irish housing market.<\/p>\n But there are also very large numbers of children (33,000 under 19) and of older people (11,349 over-65s). The children need to stay where their schools and friends are. The older people need to stay where the medical centres have Ukrainian-speaking staff who, literally, know where they\u2019re coming from.<\/p>\n [\u00a0\u2018Whatever Trump and Putin agree, we\u2019ll fight the invaders\u2019: Inside the dugouts powering Ukraine\u2019s drone warOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n O\u2019Callaghan, however, seems hell bent on phasing out all accommodation supports for the refugees. The budget allocation for this purpose has been slashed from \u20ac1.16 billion in 2024 to \u20ac606 million this year to \u20ac177 million for 2027.<\/p>\n