Carol Nolan (Laois-Offaly, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

331. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the total payments made by her Department to beneficiaries of temporary protection and international protection applicants, including the jobseeker’s allowance, child benefit, fuel allowance, exceptional needs’ payments, and so on, from March 2022 to date; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5340/23]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The European Union has put in place a temporary protection directive to allow Ukrainian citizens and others fleeing Ukraine to move through the EU as EU citizens.  During the temporary protection period, EU member states must provide access to social welfare.

It is important to note the distinction between recipients and payments.  One individual may have received several payments for the same scheme, for instance a weekly social welfare payment paid for each week they are eligible.  Therefore the figures below are several multiples of the number of beneficiaries who received these payments.  Up to 29th January 2023, there have been 1,096,633 payments made to those arriving in Ireland from Ukraine under the EU's Temporary Protection Directive.  The breakdown of those schemes is shown in the table below.

Table 1: Payments issued to those arriving in Ireland from Ukraine under the EU's Temporary Protection Directive, by scheme