Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. There is one thing none of us want to see and that is exploitation. I did not get a chance to answer on the EU social security co-ordination regulations the Deputy mentioned. Ukraine is not covered by those, nor does Ireland have a bilateral agreement with it on social security. However, social security contributions are not required to access social assistance payments such as supplementary welfare allowance. The first thing to say is we have the temporary protection directive, agreed at EU level, to deal with the mass influx of people fleeing Ukraine as a consequence of the war. That means people arriving from Ukraine have been granted the status to avail of income supports from my Department. They will have passed the habitual residency tests. We will assess their means at nil and we will not be looking for evidence of payslips or anything like that. We will assume they are coming here with nothing and indeed that is true of many of them. They are coming here with nothing. My Department is here to help them and we will do everything we can to ensure their transfer to Ireland is like going from home to home for them.

See this speech in context