Ireland has the fifth-highest number of Ukrainian refugees as a proportion of the population in the European Union, according to the latest data published by the European Council.
As of the end of March, there were 79,335 Ukrainian refugees receiving temporary protection in Ireland, the tenth highest figure for any member state.
The Eurostat figures show Ukrainian refugees account for 1.5 per cent of the population in Ireland, with Czechia being the country with the most per population (almost 5 per cent). The lowest is France with just 0.15 per cent pro rata.
There were 65,180 Ukrainian refugees in France, a country with a population of 67 million people, or 13 times the size of Ireland. Eurostat noted, however, minors are generally not included in the French data.
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France is one of several European countries that has accepted a small number of refugees compared to its population size. Others are Sweden (24,375); Denmark (34,470); Belgium (63,085); Austria (70,585) and Hungary (30,335); and Portugal (46,465).
In contrast, several countries located close to the war-stricken country have opened their doors to hundreds of thousands of refugees. Both Germany and Poland are accommodating around 1 million refugees each while Czechia has more than 320,000 Ukrainian citizens in temporary protection.
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According to the data, Ireland is one of few countries where the numbers have increased month-on-month. The numbers surpassed 20,000 in April 2022, 50,000 in August 2022, 70,000 in December 2022, rising to 79,335 by the end of March.
