No room at the inn for Irish pets
Ukrainian pets welcome but woman sleeps in her car with her cats in Kerry
I wrote about ‘Cost of Living’ double welfare payments issued to refugees last month.
Obviously nobody begrudges refugees anything, they should be treated humanely upon arrival in Ireland.
However, it begs the question, is it wise to issue €12m in payments to refugees - in one week – when they are not actually facing any rising ‘cost of living’ pressure?
Their food, board, energy and phone bills are covered.
There is growing discontent over what appear to be discriminatory policies adopted by the Irish state in favour of our new arrivals. It’s important such policy is explored and assessed, rather than quashed under the questionable term ‘far right.’
Last week I spotted another anomaly.
A piece in the Irish Examiner that told us of a woman living in her car in Dingle, Co Kerry, accompanied by her feline pets. The lady had refused an offer of homeless accommodation from Kerry County Council because she ‘would not be allowed to bring her pet cats.’
Homeless woman Sharon Crandell described the practical and emotional difficulties of living in her car in the newspaper’s comment section.
“My home was my anchor and I have lost it,” she wrote.
“Sometimes during the day or night, a heavy fog of grief will hit me and, in the middle of everything, I am grieving my loss of home, friends, and family. I wonder who I am anymore.. I never imagined I would become homeless, but that is my current reality.
“I am struggling, but I have to speak up — for myself, for other homeless people who are afraid, and to highlight from my perspective how this emergency could be handled more efficiently,” Ms Crandell wrote.
It is not mentioned anywhere in the text of her piece, but in a caption on one of the photos supplied by photographer Domnick Walsh, that this lady had been offered emergency accommodation by Kerry County Council, which she refused as she would not be allowed bring her cats.
Contrast this policy with Irish government’s planned €5m spend on transporting pets from Ukraine to live in hotel accommodation with their owners here in Ireland.
By the end of April last, 600 Ukrainians pets had arrived in Ireland under a special exemption to EU regulations on the movement of animals.
Heart-warming pictures circulated across newspapers of refugees reunited with pets, who stay in hotel accommodation with their delighted owners.
The Department of Agriculture sought tenders for contracts to provide transport for the animals from their point of arrival to designated isolation facilities, and ultimately to their owners’ place of residence.
The Department estimated that the total cost of providing the transport service would amount to €5 million excluding VAT.
Back in August, we learned that 90 government contracts worth €99.3m had been signed for hotels across the country to provide accommodation and services such as catering, cleaning and laundry for 32,000 arrivals, according to tender documents published by the Department of Integration.
Why is the policy different for those housed in emergency accommodation but fleeing Ukraine?
*It is worth noting that ‘people fleeing Ukraine’ is the umbrella term for all refugees arriving under the Temporary Protection Directive invoked by the European Commission last March.*
It provides for ‘Ukrainian nationals and residents and their family members, as well as non-Ukrainian nationals and stateless people legally residing in Ukraine who cannot return to their country or region of origin (such as asylum seekers or beneficiaries of international protection), and their family members.’
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