A VIDEO CRITICISING benefits given to Ukrainians who fled the Russian invasion begins by saying that there are “over 100,000 Ukrainians in Ireland now”.

This is not true. While it was the case that about 113,917 Ukrainians had arrived in Ireland since the start of the invasion, many of them have since left.

In the most recent count released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), in June, the estimate was that about 80,000 Ukrainian arrivals were still in Ireland.

The video has been viewed more than 59,000 times since it was posted to Facebook on 7 November, according to data on that site.

“There’s over 100,000 Ukrainians in Ireland now,” a voice says as the video begins. “They get free social welfare, ARP payments, free food, free phones. Everything’s for free. Well, it’s not free. I’m paying for it.”

The video ends with an appeal to sign up for a “gold membership” to Siol na hÉireann, an anti-immigrant group led by Niall McConnell. According to the group’s website, that membership costs €119 a year.

The Journal has previously debunked posts by both McConnell and Síol na hÉireann that used false claims to target immigrants.

While the recent video’s discussion of Ukraine is misleading on a number of fronts, it doesn’t take listening to more than the first sentence to get to a significant falsehood.

There are not “over 100,000 Ukrainians in Ireland now”.

The CSO runs a regular series called “Arrivals from Ukraine in Ireland”. The most recent update shows that, as of June 2025, the state issued 113,917 Personal Public Service Numbers, which are needed to receive benefits, to Beneficiaries of Temporary Protection (BoTP) from Ukraine.

However, this is cumulative since the Russian invasion began, and does not indicate that all those people are still in the country.

Instead, administrative data activity after March 2025 — such as active employment, picking up a social welfare payment, or having a child enrolled in a childcare or education scheme — was used to estimate the number of Ukrainians who were still in the country. This showed that there were about 80,031 Ukrainians still in the country.

Claims exaggerating the burden of hosting Ukrainians fleeing war are common in anti-immigration groups. These often include false comparisons about what Ukrainian families or workers receive compared to Irish citizens, or false claims about what supports Ukrainians are entitled to, or claims that there are laws that Ukrainians do not need to heed.

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