Plans to take in further Ukrainian families as Longford's refugee numbers hits 800 mark

Latest figures revealed to local politicians at a council meeting last Wednesday revealed there were 790 International Protection (IP) applicants in situ across all three of the county’s municipal districts.

The latest statistics concerning Longford’s contribution to Ukraine’s humanitarian crisis was disclosed by Acting Director with Longford County Council’s Humanitarian Response Team, Michael Nevin.

“The last figure we had of Ukrainians who arrived into Longford was 750,” he said, adding that a further 40 refugees had arrived into the county since the start of September.

Mr Nevin said while the council’s chief obligation was to source private accommodation and match families to suitable living quarters under the Offer a Home Scheme, those avenues were steadily being exhausted.

He said to date local authority officials had placed 199 persons in pledged or shared accommodation in 62 properties countywide.

Mr Nevin said the council were also actively looking to identify a site within the county for the purposes of erecting modular housing to cope with an additional expected influx of Ukrainian families.

He said those moves were being made on foot of a direction from the Department of Integration for all local authorities to seek out a site, State owned or privately of at least 1.5 hectares in size.

“We are doing our best to work with those individuals, families and groups but obviously we can’t overpromise as we simply don’t have the housing stock available,” he said.

“Under the refurbishment programme we have three properties, these are multi occupancy centres, two privately owned, one in Ballymahon and one in Lanesboro.”

Council bosses are, meanwhile, awaiting approval from department chiefs to press ahead with plans to refurbish a building within the town’s former Connolly Barracks to provide similar emergency type accommodation to Ukrainian refugees.