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In Ireland's capital, Dublin, tent cities set up by migrants who lack temporary protected status are repeatedly cleared. The situation has been aggravated by Ireland's housing crisis and anti-migrant laws in Britain. The center of Dublin glitters with architectural showpieces, the offices of global corporations. But there are increasingly tents at the base of the glass facades. Some of these belong to people excluded from housing, a scarcity across Ireland and simply unaffordable for many people in the booming capital. The housing crisis is the dominant topic in Ireland right now. When he took office as Taoiseach, or Ireland's head of government, in April, Simon Harris promised to provide 250,000 new homes by the end of the decade. The second group of people sleeping in tents constitute the second-hottest topic in the Irish republic. More and more migrants are arriving here, to this island in north-western Europe, and its capacity to accommodate them is at its limits — not least because of the housing crisis. The situation has been aggravated by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Since the beginning of the war, 100,000 Ukrainian refugees have registered in Ireland. An EU-wide agreement means they do not have to apply for asylum first. Ireland's government openly admits that it is unable to provide all asylum-seekers with accommodation while their applications are processed. According to the government, as of May 14, 1,780 male applicants were as yet unhoused. A veritable tent city sprang up around the International Protection Office in Dublin, which is responsible for processing asylum applications. Young men were sleeping here; they had to wash and cook on the street, and rely on bike hire docking bays to charge their phones with USB cables. On May 1, the Irish authorities cleared the camp, and divided 285 male asylum-seekers between two emergency shelters. Since then, new tent encampments have repeatedly appeared near the office, and have repeatedly been cleared.
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Irish taxpayers footed the bill for accommodating nearly 2,000 pets owned by Ukrainian refugees, including some they acquired after arriving in the country, according to local media.
The money was allocated by the Department of Integration mostly in 2022, with peak spending recorded in November that year, the Irish Mirror reported on Wednesday, based on its own investigation. At that time, 1,806 pets were staying in hotels and other properties at the state’s expense, including 933 dogs, 819 cats, and 54 other animals. It cost Ireland up to €20 ($21.50) per night for each of the animals owned by Ukrainian Beneficiaries of Temporary Protection (BOTPs), records reviewed by the news outlet revealed. The exact sum spent specifically on non-human guests could not be established because the department “did not categorize between BOTPs and pets,” a spokesperson told the newspaper. The Irish Mirror estimated that accommodation for the animals was costing taxpayers just over €1 million ($1.07) per month. The expenditure was “incredible” and “ridiculous,” independent lawmaker Michael McNamara told the newspaper, accusing the government of wastefulness. Referring to department officials, he asked: “What planet do these people live on?” “I presume the people arriving here with pets were prepared to pay for them in the same way as everyone else does or as they would have in Ukraine,” the politician added. “But if you find a department stupid enough to pay, then, of course, I wouldn’t blame people for allowing the department to pay for it.” The department said it stopped providing accommodation for Ukrainian pets from November 9, 2022. The latest report is a follow-up on a story that the Irish Mirror published in February, revealing that the Irish Department of Agriculture had spent €808,132 (about $869,000) on transport, kennelling and veterinary services for Ukrainian pets. The Blog Tags Widget will appear here on the published site.
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