Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 17 May 2022

Joint Committee On Children, Equality, Disability, Integration And Youth

Ukrainian Crisis: Discussion

Mr. Liam O'Dwyer:

The first question was about supports for hosts and refugees, which are both crucial. In the case of the host, we have an online training course that we will run for the hosts. It is not just us, as the Irish Refugee Council and Nasc and a number of us have designed it. It is quite specific to the hosts in this situation. That will be made available to people who are hosting.

Equally, there is the critical piece applying for refugees. Garda vetting is one thing but safeguarding is as important. That means we must have in place support for refugees who have moved out of hotels into accommodation and our community.

There are two types of support, namely, psychosocial support and counselling support. Then there is also simply having a name and a number and knowing that if there is a difficulty, that person can be contacted. That is very important. Earlier today, I was talking to some other NGOs and emphasising the fact that this is not just about the Red Cross, that we are all in this together and that we need to have such support in place. One thing the Department needs to focus on is ensuring that the refugees and the hosts have contact people to whom they can come back if there is any issue - and there will be issues. There always are. Sometimes these arrangements, as we know from the past, break down on either the host side or the refugee side. We need to be able quickly to move on that. That is the point of the project I mentioned earlier in respect of the people who have volunteered. Our intent is to train them in order that more volunteers will be available if refugees needed them. The other lesson we have learnt is that sometimes refugees say to us, "We are fine, thanks." It is important to be able to recognise that as well.

Deputy Cairns's second question was about lessons learned-----