Mr. Oleksandr Merezhko:

It is one of the biggest challenges and problems we face right now. We have millions of internally displaced people who have lost everything. I have spoken to these people. When I was in Lviv, there was a centre for displaced people which was located on campus in a gymnasium. I saw whole families with only a mattress and all their belongings. It was very moving to see children's toys. These people, who lost everything, were thinking at the last moment about what they could carry with them. Some of them took children's toys, while others took a cat or small dog or something like that. It is a huge tragedy for these people who lost everything and do not know what to do. It will be an economic and social problem. It is an acute problem right now because it is not easy to build new houses quickly for them. We have received assistance from our friends, such as Poland. It came up with a project through which it has been building modular towns in Ukraine. That helps to ease the problem but it does not solve it. When there are millions of such people, one has to think about how to give them housing. That is in circumstances, however, of our tremendous budget deficit of $5 billion per month. Having such a deficit, it is difficult to build new houses. It is an acute problem, unfortunately.

Another problem is those who left the territory of Ukraine and are now in Poland, Germany and other countries. We refer to them not as refugees but as temporarily displaced people. Some of my relatives became temporarily displaced people. We are grateful to the countries that are helping them and taking care of them. It is important, especially when it comes to children. At the same time, it is another problem that we will face in a couple of years, after the end of the war. We might lose the new generation of Ukrainians and that might be the biggest blow to our society and economy. We need to think about how to create the conditions in Ukraine to make it attractive for young people not to go abroad. They can receive a good education and find a job abroad but stay in Ukraine. Otherwise, we have no future. We do not want to have a lost generation. That is why, when we are speaking about reconstruction and rebuilding Ukraine, the key problem is human capital - how to retain our young people and what should be done in that regard. That is why we will need the help of Ireland and other countries after the end of the war.