LATEST: Nearly 500 Kildare people offer accommodation for Ukrainian refugees

Nearly 500 people in County Kildare have registered on a Irish Red Cross portal to offer accommodation for Ukrainian refugees. 

Most of the offers are for cases where a household has a spare room.

Overall almost 12,000 pledges of accommodation have been received across the island. 

Kildare has seen the fifth most number of offers. 

There has been over 2,100 pledges in Dublin while there are 1,300 in Cork, 663 in Galway and 586 in Meath. 

A spokesperson for the Irish Red Cross said “The Irish Red Cross have been blown away by the generosity of the Irish people both from an accommodation pledge point of view and for donating money, they have been simply astonishing.

"We are asking those who have registered with us with offers of accommodation to bear with us and our contact team will be in touch over the coming weeks.

"We have almost 12,000 pledges of accommodation since just last Friday when we had just 180 offers and to out it in context it took a few months to reach 1,000 pledges during our Syrian refugee campaign a few years ago.

"The Irish business community have also come onboard our Ukraine crisis appeal in great numbers with more and more calling us everyday to offer help and so far over 125 companies have been in touch with our fundraising team and then so many community groups have also been reaching out to us about their fundraisers.

"We are just so grateful to such a wonderful reaction from the Irish people so far.”

Over 2,500 Ukrainian refugees have arrived in Ireland so far, a third of whom are children.

Justice Minister Helen McEntee and Cabinet colleague, Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys yesterday visited a new reception centre for refugees at Dublin Airport.

The centre can process 400 refugees a day.

Each refugee will receive a PPSN Number to access government public services and will get an income support called Supplementary Allowance (SWA), which is payable at rates up to €206 per week with increases for adult and child dependants.