IRISH GOVERNMENT DONATIONS to Ukraine amount to hundreds of millions of Euro, including supplies of non-lethal equipment, but not “billions”, as a former political candidate has claimed.

“Zelenskyy arrives in Ireland for first state visit & he’s not wanted by the real Irish people,” exclaims text on an image posted to Facebook by Michelle Keane, on 1 December, the night Zelenskyy’s plane touched down in Ireland ahead of an official visit.

“We have 16,766 Irish homeless and we have given billions of euros to this bad actor,” it says. “Go home, you’re not wanted!”

The post has been seen more than 140,000 times according to stats available on Facebook.

Keane, an author, and a campaigner against 5G masts, runs a company selling water from streams she claims were revealed to her by angels.

From Knocknagoshel, Kerry, Keane came to prominence during last year’s local elections when she ran on an anti-immigration platform. Although she failed to gain a seat, she managed to garner large online followings with regular video and social media posts.

After the election, she was jailed for breaking a court order not to post content on social media about a local garda – an incident which led to misinformation that her imprisonment was due to her uncovering of election fraud.

Almost all of Keane’s recent posts on Facebook, including the one claiming Ireland had given Zelenskyy billions, include links to her own GoFundMe page.

The funding campaign includes claims that Keane was “falsely imprisoned by the Irish State” and now needs help in “exposing the political interference and political corruption and election rigging” and to stop Ireland being turned into a “dumping centre” for migrants.

It has raised more than €16,000 since January this year,

The Figures

But has Ireland given “billions of Euros” to Zelenskyy or to Ukraine? In short, no.

The European Union certainly has, but Keane’s post was specific to Ireland. 

“In terms of direct financial support, Ireland has to date provided €173.5 million in humanitarian assistance and stabilisation supports in response to the crisis in Ukraine and €100 million bilaterally in non-lethal military support to Ukraine,” the Department of Foreign affairs told The Journal.

“This support is in addition to a range of items provided through the Department of Defence including military rations, body armour, mine flails, vehicles, and satellite communications systems.”

Adding these figures together, as well as the value of the “items” sent to Ukraine, how much is this worth? According to Irish Aid, a programme by the Irish government, Ireland’s total funding to Ukraine from February 2022 to September 2025 was just over €380 million.

The same figure was also cited in the Dáil on 18 November when Minister of State Seán Canney said the figure represented Ireland’s “political, humanitarian, economic and non-lethal military support to Ukraine”.

He also cited Ireland’s supply of air defence radar systems, ambulances, and bomb disposal robots.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin announced an additional €125 million in financial support for Ukraine during the official visit 2 December as part of a new roadmap for partnership with Ireland to cover the next five years.

“The 2030 Roadmap on Ukraine-Ireland Partnership, signed during the visit of President Zelenskyy [..] includes an additional €100 million in non-lethal military support and a contribution of €25 million to help secure energy supply to Ukraine following targeted Russian attacks,” the Department of Foreign Affairs told The Journal.

“The Taoiseach has also pledged €2 million to the initiatives of the Fourth International Conference on Food Security held in Kyiv in November.”

Even if we include these additional funds (which were announced the day after Keane’s post), the total amount Ireland has pledged to Ukraine is just over half a billion Euro — far short of the “billions” claimed by Keane.

The Journal’s FactCheck is a signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network’s Code of Principles. You can read it here. For information on how FactCheck works, what the verdicts mean, and how you can take part, check out our Reader’s Guide here. You can read about the team of editors and reporters who work on the factchecks here.