Housing pledges on the rise again

AFTER hundreds of people withdrew pledges to share their homes with Ukrainian refugees, the number of offers of sanctuary is on the rise again.

In the past 10 days, the Irish Red Cross has received 316 new offers of accommodation and officials say they expect more pledges.

These new offers were made over the past two weeks as official figures show that, since the end of February, up to 29,716 women and children have arrived here from Ukraine.

After Russia’s invasion, 24,708 people offered accommodation. This has since increased to 25,535 but 14,944 of these offers are no longer available.

The numbers arriving have dropped from about 4,000 a week in March and early April to an average of 1,200 in recent weeks.