At least 1,000 Ukrainian men, women and children living in hotels across Ireland have received notifications in recent weeks that they are be relocated to new accommodation by February.
The Department of Integration has issued hundreds of letters to Ukrainian beneficiaries of temporary protection (BOTPs) since the start of January, many of them families with children attending local schools, informing them they will be moved to alternative housing, sometimes in a different part of the country.
Residents at more than 50 accommodation centres nationwide have received the transfer notifications as the Government pushes to reduce the number of contracts accommodating Ukrainian refugees and return housing to “private use, tourism or student use”.
A small proportion of premises will also be used for international protection accommodation, according to a department official.
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Around 100 Ukrainians living at the Golf Hotel in Ballybunion, Co Kerry, became the latest cohort last week to receive news that it was “no longer possible” to stay in the seaside town and that they will be relocated to alternative housing by February 7th, 2025. A further 70 Ukrainian refugees in the Kings Court Holiday Apartments in Tralee, Co Kerry received relocation letters last week.
In Limerick city, a group of 54 Ukrainians staying in Westbourne Student Accommodation have been told they will be moved in early March. There are reports of other relocation notices issued for 110 Ukrainians in The Avon holiday village in Blessington, Co Wicklow; more than 400 Ukrainians in the former Quality Hotel in Youghal, Co Cork; and 300 Ukrainians staying in the Cork Student Village on the Carrigrohane Road near Cork city. Around 150 Ukrainians living in the former Toughers restaurant outside Carlow town, who were due to leave before Christmas but given an extension, are also set to be relocated at the end of January.
Olya Maryntseva, a community worker with North, East & West Kerry Development Programme, who came to Ireland with her two children in 2022, said relocation is “frightening” for people who have already been displaced, sometimes twice, in recent years.
“We greatly appreciate the support Ireland has provided, but all of a sudden it’s like you’ve lost interest in us,” she said.
Parents of children who have learned English at school, made friends and joined local sports teams are particularly concerned, she said. “They’re being taking away from the environment where they’ve become rooted and being uplifted again. It’s the worst thing you can be doing for children.”
Seeing nearly three years of State-funded integration work being undermined is also deeply frustrating, she said. “Integration is not easy – it’s meeting people on a daily basis, listening to their issues, helping with language barriers, cleaning beaches together, working with the local community. We can see the results and now that’s being taken away.”
The lack of flexibility, and the potential for individuals and businesses to plan ahead, undermines the great efforts made to ensure the integration of newcomers from Ukraine into communities across Ireland
— John Lannon
Dr Hanna Balytska, a neonatologist who came to Ireland from Odessa in March 2022 and now works at University Hospital Limerick, is particularly concerned about the health implications of relocating vulnerable Ukrainians. Dr Balytska helped set up a Ukrainian health clinic in Bundoran when she arrived in Ireland, where she met many people with disabilities and chronic illnesses. She recalls a pregnant woman who was relocated from Donegal to Roscommon but could not find a new GP, so travelled back to Bundoran for her antenatal and postnatal appointments.
“When I worked in the Bundoran surgery I saw people who had already moved two or three times. A high percentage of Ukrainians have PTSD and they feel they can rely on their GP. If you’re moved and get sick, you can get lost in the system. That scares a lot of people,” she said.
Dr Balytska said some of her patients who have already been relocated have struggled to get referrals to local doctors. Others can’t find interpreters to speak with doctors. “Some arrive with medication for only 2-3 weeks and end up going to the emergency department for new medicine. The impact of these moves is huge.”
More than 50 providers accommodating Ukrainians around the country, with 5,000 beds between them, have received notifications that their contracts are ending in the first quarter of 2025. These contracts are being ended because of a “reduced need” for beds among Ukrainians, because “some contractors chose to end contracts” and due to “compliance concerns” or rates which could not be agreed.
Some 420 contracts with more than 15,000 beds ended in 2024, according to the Department of Integration.
A briefing note distributed through local authority integration teams earlier this month said a “significant number” of the 29,000 Ukrainians living in State-supported accommodation were likely to be moved in the coming months. The reduction in contracts will enable “better oversight and better value for money for public funds for this service”. Residents in centres will receive at least 30 days’ notice of their relocation, it said.
The letter sent by the department to residents in recent weeks also warns that in some instances, people will be moved into shared accommodation when there are “no other options available”. Any person who refuses their relocation offer “will not receive further offers of accommodation” from the Government, it said. Those with children attending school are advised to contact Tusla Education Support Services.
[ Nine in 10 families who hosted Ukrainian refugees had positive experienceOpens in new window ]
The letters also say pets can no longer be housed in State-provided accommodation and those who keep their pets “will have to make appropriate arrangements”. It has been reported that in November 2022, more than 1,800 cats, dogs and other pets that travelled here with their owners were in State accommodation.
John Lannon, chief executive of Doras, said ending accommodation for pets is very distressing for people who saved their animals from the war but now must abandon them in Ireland. These relocations are causing “upheaval and distress”, with people losing jobs, children being pulled out of schools and people cutting connections with their new communities, he said.
Local employers are also losing valuable staff through these transfers, added Mr Lannon. “The lack of flexibility, and the potential for individuals and businesses to plan ahead, undermines the great efforts made to ensure the integration of newcomers from Ukraine into communities across Ireland.”
A total of 113,636 Ukrainians have been granted temporary protection in Ireland since the war began in 2022. Nearly a quarter of these have since left Ireland, with just over 86,000 still living here, according to Government estimates.
Some 22,943 are in employment and 26,654 receive income support, according to the latest data; 19,512 children are in school and preschool, and 20,274 are enrolled in further education. About 192 Ukrainian refugees arrived in Ireland during the third week of January, compared to 104 the previous week.
Yes, people need to be moved out of hotels and stand on their own, but we won’t get that by shuffling people around the country. You need enormous internal strength and motivation to start again. The Government is not seeing the bigger picture here
— Emma Lane-Spollen
Tania Baliukonis, a Ukrainian information and support office with Cork’s Migrant and Refugee Rights Centre, Nasc, warned that relocating people away from their jobs and support network was forcing them back on to social welfare in these new locations.
“Forcing them to move counties is almost the same as moving countries again, as they have to start all over in new schools and jobs,” she said.
“We know the Government is doing its best to accommodate the needs of vulnerable people, many of whom are single mothers with children. But for them, finding independent accommodation is almost impossible. This puts them in dangerous situations where they can be taken advantage of. This comes on top of the trauma they are already dealing with of an ongoing war in their homeland.”
Meanwhile, there is growing confusion and concern among hotel owners accommodating Ukrainian refugees whose contracts are due to expire by the end of March, says Ukraine Civil Society Forum national coordinator Emma Lane-Spollen.
The Accommodation Recognition Payment (ARP), the tax-free monthly payment of €800 for those providing accommodation to Ukrainians who arrive in Ireland under the EU Temporary Protection Directive, is also due to expire on March 31st, 2025, with no clarity regarding if and when the Government plans to extend it, she said. About 35,543 Ukrainians, or 41 per cent of all BOTPs, are living in ARP-supported homes and properties, up from 27 per cent this time last year.
“What we now have is a cliff edge where people have been here nearly three years and now they’re being relocated,” said Ms Lane-Spollen. “These people have jobs, their kids are in school, they’re starting to think about moving out of State-supported accommodation.
“And now the rug is pulled out because of a motivation to close contracts. Yes, people need to be moved out of hotels and stand on their own, but we won’t get that by shuffling people around the country. You need enormous internal strength and motivation to start again. The Government is not seeing the bigger picture here.”
A spokeswoman for the Helping Irish Hosts group, the grassroots non-profit company which supports people seeking to host displaced Ukrainians, said uncertainty around the continuation of the ARP was making it “increasingly difficult to sustain these arrangements or encourage new pledges”. The group has already received 100 requests so far this month from people urgently seeking somewhere to live after being issued with notices of relocation, she said.
The Department of Integration said officials appreciated the transfers were “not easy for people” and “can be very disruptive”. However, the need to accommodate people affected by the war in Ukraine has reduced in the past year and this is expected to continue, it said, adding that Government has always been clear that accommodation of this nature is temporary.
The department said it was not possible to take employment or school places into account when relocating people and only HSE-assessed medical needs are taken into consideration. Any other exceptional services can be raised with the department, it said.
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