Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There are almost 1,600 Ukrainian people in County Clare, meaning that 1% of our county's population is now made up of Ukrainian nationals. Our arms are wide open and they are all welcome. Many supports have come from the Government in recent days, including English as an additional language, EAL, teachers and additional teaching posts in our schools. However, more is required and we need ancillary staff. I want to make a pitch for two positions that the Taoiseach might lead through at Cabinet level. First, we have fully qualified medical doctors from Ukraine. We should put one of them on duty, paid by the Government, to go to all these accommodation centres to help and support the Ukrainian population. The local GP services are not able to cater for this. Second, we need translators in the school environment for pastoral care and for home-school links. There is no position in the Department of Education at the moment for translators. We have them in abundance. We need to give them a defined role. I call on the Government to appoint a Ukrainian GP in Clare - possibly two of them - to do the circuit of accommodation centres and to appoint translators who can provide the vital home-school link for education to make this a success.

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