Student accommodation will be made available for Ukrainian refugees arriving in Ireland, Simon Harris has said.
The Higher Education Minister said on Monday that Irish colleges and universities will make student beds available to refugees when they fall vacant at the end of the term.
Mr Harris, speaking alongside Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe at the Technological University Dublin, said that 1,000 student beds have already been offered.
“We have been working with our colleges and we’re continuing to work with them to make sure that student accommodation, which will be vacant when colleges are closed, can be made available in the short-term for Ukrainian students,” he said, as he helped turn the sod at a new academic hub and library at the Grangegorman campus.
“That might help in terms of some of the sequencing, to allow time for other options to be put in place in terms of accommodation.
“More than 1,000 student beds have already been offered up by colleges and universities right across our country.”
Mr Harris also confirmed he and his family have registered to provide a room for any Ukrainians who need it.
Nearly 10,000 Ukrainian refugees have already arrived in Ireland, which has waived all visa requirements for those fleeing the Russian invasion.
The Government has already confirmed that students coming from Ukraine will be able to continue their studies in Ireland.
Mr Harris said: “The policy objective here is to make sure in the middle of the biggest humanitarian crisis we’ve ever lived through that there aren’t vacant beds when college is done.
“I really want to thank our universities for the leadership they’ve shown.”
Asked whether private student accommodation companies – which provide hundreds of beds in Dublin alone – will make rooms available, Mr Harris said that the Government was working with local authorities to “identify in every town and every county, what sort of accommodation may be available”.
“I’m sure private student accommodation will come into the mix in that regard,” he said.
Mr Donohoe told reporters that he did not want to see financial constraints on how many refugees from Ukraine the country could take.
“Overall, there are always constraints that the Government faces in relation to national finances, in relation to how much we can borrow.
“But we are going to do all we can to make sure that is not the constraints that guides how our country responds back to this huge humanitarian need.
“We’re going to mobilise all the resources that are available to us to do it.
“But it does mean there’s a need for Government then to be open and honest about the fact that we will not be able to meet every other need that we want to respond back to because the need to respond back to humanitarian needs that we are going to face will be so important.”
Simon Coveney, speaking from a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, said Ireland would likely be doubling its contribution to Ukraine as part of the European Peace Facility – a fund set up to send military aid to the war-torn country.
The Foreign Affairs Minister said he expected EU member states to reach an agreement in the coming days on a doubling of that fund from half a billion euro to one billion euro, bringing the Republic of Ireland’s total contribution to 22 million euro.
The country, while militarily neutral, has committed itself to providing non-lethal aid to Ukrainian forces battling the Russian invasion.
The minister said he believed there was an “appetite for increased sanctions” in the EU, but acknowledged that difficult discussions remained about possible sanctions on Russian oil and gas imports.
“I certainly accept that money coming from the EU, in the energy sector, is funding Russia right now. You don’t need to convince me that we need to add significantly to the four packages of sanctions already agreed,” he said.
Mr Coveney told RTE radio that some options currently being discussed “impact significantly on EU member states and so we have to be sure we can keep unity in this discussion”.
The European Council is set for a further crunch meeting at the end of the week but it remains unclear if Taoiseach Micheal Martin will make it.
The Irish premier remains in isolation in Washington after testing positive for Covid during his trip to the US capital to mark St Patrick’s Day.
“We will have to wait and see whether he is able to attend the European Council in person or not,” Mr Coveney said.
Earlier, Mr Donohoe said: “He’ll only attend if his health allows it and if the rules governing attendance at that meeting, from a health point of view, allow him to be there. So I hope it will happen.”
