Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy is correct about the direct provision system.

He knows of my efforts to end direct provision. We have the White Paper. We had a quite substantive discussion about that during the taking of questions earlier today and I set out what we are doing. I have been honest about the impact of the war in Ukraine, which has affected my Department's ability over the past three months.

Fourteen Ukrainian nationals sought international protection here in 2012. There were seven in 2013, 36 in 2014, 33 in 2015, 11 in 2016, eight in 2017 and five in 2018. I will provide the remaining figures to the Deputy after these questions. At the start of the current crisis, in late February, we saw an uptake in the number of Ukrainians seeking international protection, but once the temporary protection directive was introduced, the vast majority of Ukrainians arriving here have not been seeking international protection; rather, they are seeking the rights under the temporary protection directive.

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