Opinion

Ireland deserves huge credit for refugee response

In particularly challenging circumstances, the Irish government deserves full credit for its efforts to deal with the influx of refugees fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

An amazing 40,000 having already arrived in Ireland, a total which in pro rata terms puts the UK to shame, and many more are understood to be on their way.

There have been considerable difficulties at Dublin airport over recent days, with dozens of those arriving from the Ukraine having to stay overnight in an old terminal building because of a serious shortage of official accommodation.

Efforts to provide additional facilities have been stepped up, although a tented camp at a military base at Gormanston in Co Meath which is scheduled to open today can hardly be regarded a long term solution.

A tranche of modular housing is due to be completed by November, but it will be noted that the various student residential blocks already in use will no longer be available when the next academic year starts in September.

Tanaiste Leo Varadkar has said that a second reception centre, similar to the one in place at the Citywest hotel in Dublin, has been identified, but the location has not been made public.

While there have been suggestions in some quarters that more progress should have been made, it is important to realise the scale of the international operation which is under way and to compare the Irish performance with the UK's record to date.

The Republic's Ukrainian refugee figure is roughly eight times higher per head of population than the UK, where some 65,000 to date have been accepted, in percentage terms among the lowest in Europe.

British visa schemes have been widely criticised for the lengthy delays experienced by many applicants, with hundreds of Ukrainian families having reportedly chosen to withdraw from the process and seek other destinations.

It is striking that, according to the latest available statistics, barely 600 visas – less than two pc of the total for the Republic - have been granted in Northern Ireland.

Complications over the payment of support funds have certainly not helped, and it will be widely believed that the absence of a functioning Stormont administration has added to the wider problems.

The Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has described the outgoing British prime minister Boris Johnson as a `hero’, but the Irish response to the refugee crisis merits much greater praise.