Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 30 March 2022
34. Deputy Mairéad Farrell asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform to provide an update on the work that is being undertaken to assess the expenditure impact from taking in up to 200,000 Ukrainian refugees; if certain Departments will require a supplementary estimate, and if he will provide any forecasting, modelling, risk analysis or otherwise, which has been done to date. [16754/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraWork is continuing within my Department to develop our understanding of the potential expenditure impact of taking in refugees from Ukraine. At present, as this is still an early stage of people movement into Ireland, it is difficult to provide exact costings as the range of potential arrivals is quite large and the demographic profile of these can only be estimated at this point. It is also unclear as to what extent arrivals may have existing support networks within Ireland.
There is a whole-of-Government response in place to co-ordinate on the impacts from the conflict, identifying emerging sectoral and cross-sectoral issues and the requirements for responding to the various aspects of the economic and humanitarian issues arising. Forecasting and modelling being developed in that context will inform expenditure impacts on an ongoing basis.
Officials in my Department are working with other Government Departments to examine the information available on the arrivals from Ukraine to date and using this to estimate the potential resources that may be required for this cohort and ranges of subsequent arrivals and the related public expenditure impact. This work is still under development. From early stage estimations, costs are expected to be significant with levels heavily dependent on the accommodation solutions that might be found for larger numbers of arrivals and for the longer term.
By way of illustration, 100,000 refugees would represent an increase in population of 2% over a short period of time. An increase in public spending in line with this growth in population would amount to c. €1¾ billion. However, given that refugees will need to be supported significantly given their needs as they escape the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, costs could be expected to be higher and could be in the region of €2½ billion for a full year. These are early estimates and will be developed and considered further in the context of the Stability Programme Update.
Given the scale of arrivals anticipated, it is recognised that Supplementary Estimates will be required later in the year as it may not be possible for every Department to meet the costs of providing for Ukrainian refugees within their existing allocations. However, as the actual number of arrivals is not yet known and work on detailed costings is still underway it is not possible to say definitively at this point the scale of Supplementary Estimates that will be required.
