Limerick councillors discuss housing options for Ukrainian refugees
THE HEARTBREAKING stories of Ukrainian refugees in one Limerick area has led public representatives to put the call out for more urgent and sustainable housing provision.
Cllr Jerome Scanlan said his heart goes out to the families now being housed at Cahermoyle, mostly women and children, who are without their fathers and husbands who have remained behind.
“Among them is an 84-year-old lady who walked 700 kilometers and eventually got to Amsterdam and then to Limerick,” he stated at a sitting of the Newcastle West Municipal District.
He asked his colleagues to “pull out all the stops”, stressing that the housing of 92 refugees at Cahermoyle isn’t about money but about allowing people to “live and maintain a quality of life.”
“What they are doing there is superb, but they can’t remain there permanently because that is not the right type of lifestyle to subject people to,” Cllr Scanlan added.
Cathaoirleach, Cllr Liam Galvin thanked Cllr Scanlan for his sentiments but said that empty buildings with a roof on them are “100 times better than where these people are coming from.”
He noted that President Volodymyr Zelensky’s speech to Dáil Éireann members on April 6 last will go down in history and those living in Newcastle West and surrounding areas must continue to step up.
“We will do what we can for Ukraine. If there are units, if there are houses, if there are buildings out there, please come forward with that information,” he concluded.