In total, the Irish Red Cross was awarded 23,483 commitments to host Ukrainian refugees, of which 10,360 were deemed fit for placement, reports Breaking News.
According to Red Cross data published on BreakingNews.ie, 5,350 donations were duplicates because donors inadvertently submitted multiple applications.
According to the Red Cross, of the 10,360 hosts approved in the Register of Pledges (ROP), 4,067 “remained uncontactable and this is after numerous calls and e-mails”, reports Breaking News.
Meanwhile, 7,773 people were later withdrawn, mainly due to changes in their circumstances.
The Red Cross said some were withdrawn because people were ” were frustrated by the long wait to receive a refugee” and “some because they had already taken in a refugee via an unofficial channel or the Offer a Home scheme”.
A total of 3,646 refugees from Ukraine have been accepted, 1,335 are currently available and under consideration, and 494 are operational, but the donor asked the group to wait until the end of the year.
The engagement was so high that it initially crashed the site. Once technical support was provided, the issue was resolved “immediately”; by the end of 2022, 21,428 pledges had been received and a further 2,055 since then, all in response to the “extraordinarily generous response from the Irish public”, reports Breaking News.
From March 2022, the Red Cross and the Department for Equality and Children’s Affairs (DCEDIY) operate the system and will set up a database to receive and report incoming data from the RPO within a few months.
The customer relationship management (CRM) tool was a “critical tool” for tracking, progressing and leveraging each commitment.
Within two months, four call centres responded to donors and in June 2022 viable and available donations were forwarded to the department for placement, mainly by local authorities with the support of several voluntary organizations including the Red Cross.
The Red Cross said the process was “slower than hoped for given this was a new undertaking”, leading to “some frustration for pledgers” and Government, reports Breaking News.
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