Moving Ukrainians is putting them out of jobs, splitting friendships and undermining integration

BY KATHY MASTERSON AND ALLEN MEAGHER

In Wexford, community worker Marie-Louise Byrne, speaking at a national conference held in June, listed the moving of refugees as one of nine challenges to successful integration. (The other challenges included information vacuums, hostile online spaces and far-right exploitation, stretched frontline services, geographic proportionality, and the need for courageous political leadership).

In Tralee, community workers wrote to try and stop a mother and a child with a medical condition known to all the local teachers being moved to Mahon in Cork city. Despite the outcry they were still moved.

In West Cork, community worker Kathryn Kingston spoke in September on local radio, saying how hard it was to see settled refugees being moved by the government from areas they had settled in.

Ms Kingston made the comments on C103FM after over 140 Ukrainian refugees were moved from accommodation centres in Bantry, Roscarbery and Clonakilty to other areas in the county, and even as far as Killarney.

She noted that the areas the refugees were moved to are “just far enough away to make it awkward” as there are no public transport links between the locations.

“They can’t commute to their jobs from the new locations, or school, they can’t stay in touch with the community,” she said.

Many of the Ukrainians were employed locally. Children had also settled well in local schools and had established friendships.

“Children going to secondary school had chosen their subject options, then they were moved to a new school, where you’re not guaranteed those options. They had bought uniforms, books. They weren’t aware that they were going to be relocated,” said Kathryn.

• Kathryn Kingston, a development worker with West Cork Development Partnership since 2001, is dismayed that settled refugees are being moved.

And it’s not just in West Cork, as Ukrainian refugees in other counties including Kerry, Clare, Wexford, Tipperary, Leitrim and Waterford have also been moved.

People had formed deep friendships and the moves are undermining integration and local volunteering, said Ms Kingston.

“We’re going to lose the volunteers. They’re not just going to start all over again. We’ll lose the whole volunteering spirit.”

“The letter that comes out just says ‘we’re consolidating accommodations, we’re reducing the numbers of contracts to private providers’.

“They are mentioning non-compliance, but talking to the accommodation providers, they are saying ‘we weren’t being non-compliant, nobody told us that we weren’t being compliant’. So we haven’t got to the bottom of that,” revealed Ms Kingston.

“To be honest there probably was a need for consolidation. One of the suggestions we’ve made is, could they be left in the town and just moved to other alternatives? They’re just moving them around willy nilly and not using local accommodation first,” she said.

In a statement, the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth accepted that “moving location can be very disruptive, but at all times the Department was clear that State-funded accommodation is temporary and subject to change.” It added that “every effort is made” to provide new accommodation locally, but said that this is not always possible.

It said it was reducing the number of contracts for accommodation providers for Ukrainians due to “a decrease in numbers needing accommodation, compliance concerns, value for money and greater oversight of the portfolio”.

A small number of the refugees in West Cork managed to source their own accommodation in the area, said Ms Kingston, acknowledging help from local employers who wanted to keep valued workers.

Ms Kingston said they had integrated well into their communities, joining local sports clubs and choirs, and volunteering with local groups.

“They really were a boost to the area. They provided jobs, they were filling school places. They were turning up week after week to help with Tidy Towns,” she said.

Sadly, the letters sent to refugees by the Department also state that it can no longer provide accommodation for pets, and urges those affected to “make appropriate arrangements” for their animals.

Ms Kingston said it was very difficult “watching people get on that bus (to their new accommodation centres)”.

“They’re not all going to the same location, the buses went to three different accommodation centres. They would have established friendships, minded each other’s children, supported each other,” she said.