Ireland seems to be taking in far more Ukrainian refugees than is any other European country. We seem to be far more generous with our social welfare payments and all the other benefits. There should be a uniform rate of social welfare payment across the European Union. I ask that all refugees and asylum seekers who arrive here without any documentation be asked to provide their original identity details within six or eight weeks after coming here. No Irish people qualify for any payment without providing their details. Many Irish families cannot visit their relatives and friends abroad in places like Australia, while refugees who have come here are able to do so.

Ireland has welcomed a lot of people - approximately 100,000 - from Ukraine in the past two years. I am proud that we as a country were able to do that, notwithstanding the pressures and problems it has created. The numbers are big but we are not top of the league table in the EU, either on raw numbers or in percentage terms. There are much higher numbers in countries like Poland, Slovakia and so on, for obvious reasons. It would not work to have a single uniform payment rate across the EU for the exact same reasons we do not have a single minimum wage across the EU. The cost of living in Bulgaria, for example, is very different from the cost of living in Denmark. We have to set rates that make sense for this country.