Heated exchanges as Ministers told Ireland one of last countries not to change refugee accommodation offer
Ireland is among the only countries in Europe not to have changed its accommodation offering to refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine, the Cabinet was told during a heated row between Ministers on Tuesday.
Minister for Integration Roderic O’Gorman ran into opposition from Cabinet colleagues over plans drawn up which would limit State-provided accommodation for those newly arriving from Ukraine to just 90 days.
Mr O’Gorman is said to have told Cabinet colleagues who asked whether Ireland would be the first to change its system that it would in fact be among the last to institute reforms of this type.
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- Ireland’s weather today: Mist and fog will gradually clear this morning. Dry this morning and for a time this afternoon with spells of hazy sunshine, ahead of cloud and rain, which will gradually move up from the southwest. Localised heavy falls and spot flooding are possible later. Parts of the north and northeast staying dry for daylight hours. Highest temperatures of 11 to 14 degrees in moderate to fresh southeasterly winds, stronger along south and west coasts.
Israel-Hamas conflict
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- Opinion - Only possible outcomes to Israel-Hamas war are a single-state solution or total annihilation: The use of spectaculars has long been a tool used by militant groups to achieve their ends: consider the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo or the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers in New York. The consequences of these spectaculars, in both cases, were horrendous, and far outweighed the immediate effects of the original atrocity, writes Niall Holohan.
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Martyn Turner
Letters to the Editor
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Sir, – I am horrified by the rising death toll and near total abandonment of international law we are witnessing in Gaza. After two weeks of full-scale siege and heavy bombardment, I fear that if a ground invasion goes ahead, the worst is yet to come.
On Tuesday I received the tragic news that the eight-year-old daughter of a staff member working for Christian Aid’s local partner was killed in an airstrike that struck her home in northern Gaza. Her name was Habiba. She enjoyed art and aspired to become a doctor.
In her message, Habiba’s grief-stricken mother said: “She was carrying a colouring brush and not a weapon, she is a child with a lot of dreams. They killed her dreams and they deprived me from enjoying the light of my beautiful Habiba.”
Habiba is just one of more than 2,000 children killed in Gaza by Israeli bombing since 7th October.
At the weekend it was reported that the Israeli army dropped leaflets over Gaza city warning people that they may be considered “complicit with a terrorist organisation” if they remain in their homes.
However, many civilians, including our partners and their families remain in northern Gaza. International humanitarian law is abundantly clear – there can be no justification for the deliberate targeting of civilians or indiscriminate attacks on civilian neighbourhoods. The Irish Government and EU leaders must defend this basic, lifesaving principle.
A ceasefire is needed now before more civilian life is needlessly lost. – Yours, etc,
ROSAMOND BENNETT, Chief executive, Christian Aid Ireland, Dublin 2.
Video & Podcast Highlights
Review of the day
- My BodyFix review: Kathryn Thomas is empathetic as serious health issues shared, but the VR feels OTT: Hypochondriacs will be ready to dive behind the couch throughout Kathryn Thomas’s new series, My BodyFix (RTÉ One, 8.30pm). It’s health television meets Keanu Reeves’s The Matrix – which feels odd in the abstract and even more unlikely on the screen. And that’s before you factor in those squeamish viewers who’d rather walk barefoot on Lego than see a CGI rendering of an icky ticker – and will clench their teeth upon hearing 6,000 people have heart attacks in Ireland each year.
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