Electric Picnic tents in Laois for Ukrainians will end but Government Minister can't rule out future use

The Minster whose Department signed a deal to put 750 Ukrainan war refugees in tents Laois says their use in Stradbally will end after six weeks.

However, Minister Roderic O’Gorman can't rule out the use of tents in future for people fleeing the war in Ukraine.

The Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth spoke to reporters in Dublin the day after a fraught public meeting was held in Stradbally over the setting up of a refugee camp without any public consultation.

“The Stradbally site will be used for six weeks and then we will cease using that,” he said.

“I can’t rule out further use of the tented accommodation, but I think it’s important to remember in the context of accommodating 70,000 people, we’ll at maximum be accommodating 750 in tents.

 “The state is accommodating 70,000 Ukrainians, and right now about 200 are in tented accommodation. That will grow over the next six weeks to about 750 but that’s 750 out of 70,000.

“In the context of international protection accommodation, we’re accommodating about 23,000 persons and again, it’s about 300 in tented accommodation.

“So it is a small proportion of our overall offering, but when the system is under pressure like that all options have to be used.

“As I indicated over the summer, we were always going to face a pinch point coming into August and September,” he said at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin.

“The primary reason for that was over the summer we were using student accommodation, that was hugely beneficial, hugely useful to us to meet immediate needs of the people arriving in the country.

“However, over the summer we’ve also seen an increase in the number of Ukrainians arriving here.

“We’re seeing about maybe 500 a week arriving and needing accommodation.

“So I suppose the confluence of that did put us under pressure in late August and early September. Across the last four weeks, my department has moved 2,800 people out of student accommodation and into more long-term accommodation.

“So I suppose that’s the context in which we’re using Stradbally. We’re using the tented accommodation there, accommodation for about 750 people. It’s going to help us when we get through the next number of weeks.

“I do have to flag though, and we’ve been very clear with the Ukrainian embassy on this, there is real pressure on the system right now.

“We, as you know, we’re accommodating 70,000 Ukrainians across the country, this is something that’s never been done at scale, this has never been done in our history before.

“But we are under pressure now and we are being as upfront with Ukrainians as possible in terms of the pressure and the difficulty in securing large amounts of additional accommodation.”

“By and large, our hotel contracts are renewing reasonably well, and we do lose some and sometimes we have to move away from certain contractors where they haven’t met all the conditions.

“And in those circumstances … Ukrainians have to be moved but, by and large, our existing contracts are rolling over," he said.

He committed to cease use of the Laois site as contracred with Thomas Cosby who owns the site which also stages the Electric Picnic.

He said people who will be living in Stradbally over the next few weeks will be moved elsewhere.