Taoiseach: Government must 'slow down' number of Ukrainians coming to Ireland 

Speaking to reporters in Seoul, South Korea during a trade mission, he said the Government will not adopt a policy like some EU countries that allow social welfare payments to those fleeing war in Ukraine run out.

“People here from Ukraine fit into all sorts of different categories. Some are pensioners, a lot are children, I don't see everyone being treated just the same because they aren't now at the moment. So we'll have to look at the different categories differently," he said.

“There are countries where at a certain point, you know, welfare payments run out. Whereas in Ireland they are indefinite.

“I don't think we’ll decide that at a certain point you get nothing at all. I don’t think that’s a road we’re going to go down. 

"It’s not unusual in other European countries that at a certain point, your job seekers run out, we've never done that, I don't think we're going to start doing that,” Mr Varadkar said. 

The Taoiseach also said it’s not easy to pick one EU country and emulate the reforms they have introduced as the Government has to take into account Ireland's higher cost of living and that souring accommodation in the private rental sector might be more difficult.

Mr Varadkar said the Government can’t turn “a blind eye” to the accommodation shortage and has to “take action” until the State can get on top of the situation. He said between 500-800 Ukrainians are arriving in Ireland every week with 30% having spent time living in another EU country- a statistic he described as “significant.” 

“The situation that we have at the moment though, is that the numbers have been very large. It's putting huge pressure on accommodation, really struggling to find accommodation now for Ukrainians who are coming to Ireland.

It's an illusion for countries to think that they can just control the number of people entering. I think everyone knows that, everyone realises that we can’t turn a blind eye to it. And we need to take action that will slow the numbers coming in so we've had more time to catch up on accommodation and other issues.

“And it makes sense in that context for us to look at what other Western European countries do and see that our offering is something similar to that.

“So other countries don't offer, for example, limited state-provided accommodation at no cost and we do,” Mr Varadkar said.

The Irish Examiner first reported that Integration Minister Roderic O’Gorman and his department officials proposed offering just three months of State-provided accommodation to Ukrainians on arrival here before they had to find their own place to live.

The proposal led to a bitter row at Cabinet between Mr O’Gorman, Tánaiste Micheál Martin, and Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien who claimed Mr O’Gorman’s proposal would shift the responsibility of housing Ukrainians to the Department of Housing.

When asked what the Government will do if the policy changes introduced do not succeed in slowing down the numbers coming here, Mr Varadkar said that Government will just have to try their best, “that’s the truth,” he said.

He said he has had no further update on a more comprehensive plan to make changes to how Ukrainians are supported here but he anticipates new reforms will come into place this year. However, he said he could not say this for certain as the Government is still working on the options and a memo has to go to Cabinet. 

He said the changes to accommodation and possible changes to social welfare will happen around the same time and changes to income support will require legislation.

Mr Varadkar said he has not seen any evidence or statistics on the number of Ukrainians that may have left their accommodation vacant for some time. Senior Government sources have said some Ukrainians have been absent form their housing for weeks, in some cases months, hence why the Government tightened its absence policy and  suspended the right to an absence of seven days over a six-month period.

Separately, Mr Varadkar said Russia’s decision to sign into law that it is withdrawing its ratification of the global treaty banning nuclear weapons tests is not welcome.

He said: “I don't know what Russia intends to do in terms of testing nuclear weapons or developing additional nuclear weapons, but it's not what the world needs. I don't think it’s a good thing at all and I just hope that other nuclear powers won't respond by proliferating even more.

“And the advantage of those treaties is it stopped countries testing nuclear weapons, it stopped countries developing new ones. And there's a risk that if countries start to withdraw from those treaties that you'll end up in a new arms race and what’s the good that can possibly come out of that,” he added.