Vacant social homes to be made available for Ukrainian refugees in Ireland

Vacant social homes will be brought back into use for Ukrainian refugees while a new cross-department taskforce has been established to oversee the long-term response.

Minister for Housing Darragh O'Brien is expected to bring a memo to Cabinet tomorrow outlining medium and long-term plans to address acute accommodation pressures.

The Cabinet was warned last week that all accommodation types could be at maximum capacity by the last week of April. It is understood that arrivals over Friday and Saturday were relatively low at 277 across the two days, which continues the trend from over Easter.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin yesterday rejected the idea of putting caps on the number of Ukrainian refugees arriving in Ireland after more than 25,000 arrived in just over two months.

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Mr O’Brien is expected to update Cabinet about an expanded voids programme whereby vacant social homes will be brought back into use. Some 6,000 such homes were brought back into use over the past two years.

Acquisition programme

He will also detail an expanded acquisition programme where local authorities will have greater flexibilities to acquire homes. It is also understood about 100 vacant properties have been identified by local authorities around the country for potential use.

A cross-sectoral and cross-departmental housing taskforce has been established to develop longer-term housing options in response to the war in Ukraine.

The taskforce is examining the conversion of vacant buildings, both State owned and private, into suitable accommodation for those fleeing Ukraine. It will also look at the activation of planning permissions which have not yet commenced.

The Minister has emergency powers available to him under existing laws whereby certain planning requirements can be bypassed to speed up delivery in emergency situations and a source said the department is working with stakeholders to finalise where these powers could be used.

Eight killed

Meanwhile, eight people were killed when a Russian missile hit an apartment block in the Ukrainian port city Odesa on Saturday. Eighteen people were also injured in a salvo that Kyiv said was fired by Russian jets over the Caspian Sea, and which also struck a military facility.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he planned to meet US secretary of state Antony Blinken and US defence secretary Lloyd Austin in Kyiv, in what would be the first visit to Ukraine's capital by senior US officials since Russia launched its all-out invasion.

In an Easter Sunday address from Kyiv’s 1,000-year-old Saint Sophia cathedral, Mr Zelenskiy said: “This great holiday gives us hope and an unwavering belief that light will defeat darkness, good will defeat evil, life will defeat death, and therefore Ukraine is certain to triumph.”