Minister for Integration Roderic O’Gorman has warned of the impact on thousands of Ukrainians if the State were to cut or immediately end an accommodation payment scheme worth €800 tax-free a month for people hosting those fleeing the war in their homeland.
Mr O’Gorman said alternative accommodation would have to be found if the scheme were ended, but he confirmed that the scheme was under review.
The Minister was responding to Sinn Féin finance spokesman Pearse Doherty, who said his party believed the scheme should only be available to host families who open up their own homes and not to properties “that really should be on the private rental market”.
He said the scheme could only “create competition, resentment and inequality” in “an already dysfunctional rental market”.
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Labour leader Ivana Bacik later hit out at Mr Doherty, accusing him of “singling out” Ukrainians amid a housing crisis. She said it was a “new low in the political vernacular”.
Ms Bacik said it was not helpful either to hear Ministers “appearing to scapegoat migrants”, in apparent reference to comments by the Taoiseach.
Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns claimed Simon Harris’s comments on homelessness and rising migration were “textbook dog whistle”.
During Leaders’ Questions Mr Doherty said the scheme provides homeowners or landlords €800 a month tax-free for hosting or renting a home to Ukrainians and the tax-free payment was worth €1,600 to landlords.
He added that the latest figures showed that the number of new payments was increasing at a rate of nearly 1,000 a month, “and you have built in an incentive for landlords to accept one renter over another based on their nationality when the housing need of both are acute. And that is wrong, two people working side by side, earning the same wages with the same family size.”
The Minister pointed out that “there is a review under way at the moment, and that will feed into the decision as to whether we extend it in line with the temporary protection directive, and whether we extend it unamended, or we make changes in terms of its ambit.”
“But it is really important to say there are thousands of people supported by this payment right now,” continued Mr O’Gorman. “If we were to cut this payment, if we were to end it immediately, it is important that we understand the impact that that would have on Ukrainians”. He said alternative accommodation would have to be found.
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