Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)

Fine Gael's manifesto for the previous general election stated it would "Stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes." It would, it said, "unequivocally support Ukraine". That promise, like all the other promises of this Government, lasted approximately 100 days. It was not worth the paper it was written on. One of the first things the Government is doing is slashing supports to Ukrainian people who have fled to Ireland, by cutting the ARP from €800 to €600 per month. The Government started kicking Ukrainian refugees out of hotels ahead of the elections last year in an attempt to appease the far right. As a result, since last May, the percentage of Ukrainian refugees relying on the ARP has risen from 27% to 46%. One in two Ukrainian refugees is now reliant on this payment. This cut will have an immediate impact on nearly half of all Ukrainian refugees living in this State.

Currently, 37,500 people rely on the ARP to keep a roof over the heads. The Government knows that many of the hosts would not be hosting if they were not getting the €800 payment. In one survey, three quarters of hosts said they would not be able to continue to accommodate Ukrainians if the payment was cut. An even higher percentage - 86% - told the Irish Red Cross that the payment is important to them continuing to host. The Government knows that cutting this payment will mean families being evicted onto the streets, forced to return to an active war zone, or - in circumstances where they can - going into the private rental market and adding to the pressures there.

The point has been made repeatedly that this makes no financial sense. I do not think this is an example of petty penny-pinching by the Government. I think the Government knows it will cost more money than it will save but it is willing to spend money on perfomative, expensive cruelty. It is like the chartered deportation flights. They make no sense in economic terms and are an extraordinarily expensive way of deporting people but it is about the theatre. Similarly, this is about saying to people, "Don't worry, we are dealing with these Ukrainians. Look, we have cut the payment from €800 to €600." This Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Lowry lackey Government is so right wing it is more interested in pandering to anti-immigration sentiment and the far right than in preventing even more families becoming homeless, while Fine Gael champions the idea of supporting and standing with Ukraine.

It is disgraceful that Sinn Féin's amendment urges the Government to go even further in its attacks on refugees. This is part of a failed tactic where Sinn Féin chases after the far right for votes. It did not work during the previous two elections last year. in fact, it backfired disastrously by centring and problematising the issue of immigration and taking pressure off the Government that has been responsible for the housing crisis, cost-of-living crisis and everything else because it suggests the problem is actually immigrants, which is wrong. All it means is that Sinn Féin ends up participating in attacks on refugee families and making those attacks even worse.

It does not even gain anything politically. It just cedes more and more ground to the far right and honest, ordinary people see it as being dishonest and flip-flopping. Rather than dividing the working class by attacking particular groups and pitting people against each other, we should be fighting for universal, non-means tested payments, higher wages and universal public housing for all. We should be trying to lift the level of how we treat refugees, not drag it down. That is how we fight the far right, by addressing the poverty and inequality it exploits, not by making poverty and inequality even worse.

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