About a dozen Ukrainian adults, some of them carers or those with chronic illnesses, protested outside Leinster House on Wednesday against removal from their homes later this month.
They were told during the summer that they must leave their hotel accommodation at Citywest in Dublin by this Friday.
Letters received in June and July said they would be moved to alternative accommodation in Kill or Punchestown, Co Kildare, Co Offaly, or Dundalk, Co Louth. If they did not accept these locations, they would have to source their own accommodation.
As beneficiaries of temporary protection, Ukrainians displaced by the war with Russia are not entitled to social housing or to emergency homelessness accommodation.
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Those gathered as the Dáil returned after the summer break object to being moved to locations many kilometres away from schools, hospitals and GP services on which they say they depend.
Svetlana Koval has lived in Citywest for almost three years with her mother and 10-year-old daughter.
“The Government told me, ‘You should leave’. I sent a lot of documents explaining my situation. I don’t want my daughter to lose her education. She is 10 years [old]. She is in a school,” she said.
Koval said that she has been looking for a place to live since March. “Social housing is closed for Ukrainian ... My daughter, every day she cries.”
Asked what she would do after the Friday deadline, she replied: “I do not know ... On one side we have Russia and war, on this side we have homeless, living on streets.”
Her mother, she added, needs to be near a particular Dublin hospital. Her daughter, having missed a year of school in Ukraine, is now thriving at a local national school.
“She is integrated. She has friends. But every day now, she is crying because she does not want trauma again.”
Denys Hieniievskyi (35) is living with an Irish host family. However, his hosts have told him they will need his bedroom in November to accommodate their daughter.
“My Irish host [does] not know what to do. I don’t know what to do,” said Hieniievskyi. “I have huge stress.”
He said he uses crutches as his joints are “damaged”, cannot walk far and wants to stay near the hospital and GP he attends.
“The Government says we do not need the ARP [accommodation recognition payment paid to host families] after March. I feel very scared, but I try to control it,” he said. “It is very hard. I cannot sleep.”
The department has been approached for comment.
