Over 200 Ukrainian refugees have requested permission to remain living in student accommodation in Dublin city centre until the summer.
Parents have asked that their children end the academic year in their current schools, while others are seeking places to rent.
The Department of Integration has said obligations under Rent Pressure Zone legislation mean accommodation must be returned to students next month.
At 16 years of age, Sophia Stupak fled the war in Ukraine with her brother and her mother.
Since they arrived in Ireland three years ago, they have been moved six times to different accommodation around the country.
Despite the upheaval, Sophia managed to complete her Leaving Cert and is now studying at Trinity College.
Her brother, who is nine years old, has also settled in at a local Dublin city centre school where he is happy.
They don't want to be moved again.
Sophia and her family live in student accommodation at another third level institution located in the city centre, along with more than 200 Ukrainian refugees.
They were recently informed by the Department of Integration that they need to leave that accommodation by 13 March.
Those affected include over 40 children who are attending local schools.
Parents are pleading with the Minister for Children Norma Foley - who maintains responsibility for the Department of Integration until it moves to the Department of Justice - to allow them to remain in the accommodation until the end of the school year.
Tatiana Ataian’s daughter is in second level and her son is in primary school in the city.
Her daughter is particularly stressed about the prospect of moving because she is in an exam year.
Tatiana says it would make a huge difference to the children if they could remain in their schools until the end of the school year this summer.
Ina Matvey was a TV journalist in eastern Ukraine.
She flicks through the before and after photos of the studios where she once worked, which is now rubble.
Her husband is one of over 70 people living at the IFSC accommodation who is working.
Despite his employment, renting is a "big problem", she says. He supports nine family members.
Ina says people are grateful to Ireland, but she is extremely concerned about the future.
She points out that the Accommodation Recognition Payment, which is due to cease next month, means there will no longer be a programme of support for Ukrainian refugees in Ireland.
Her son Matvey, who is 11 years old, likes school because "it is safer".
He questions why third level students require student accommodation next month.
"They will live in the accommodation when they come next year in September. I don't understand why we have to leave this place in March."
The reason for moving the refugees out is due to the rent pressure zone legislation, according to the Department of Integration.
In 2024, the Department of Further and Higher Education wrote to the Department of Integration to express concern about ongoing contracts with former Student Accommodation Centres.
It said that in circumstances where they had not been providing accommodation to students for more than two years, student accommodation settings would be excluded from obligations under Rent Pressure Zone legislation.
It was agreed that these beds would be returned to student accommodation when it was possible to do so.
A spokesperson for the Department of Integration said that to avoid further potential hardship at a time of already significant expense to students and their families, student accommodation contracts would be terminated by April 2025.
This, he said, would ensure - to the greatest extent possible - the retention of such accommodation settings within the remit of the Rent Pressure Zone legislation.
Service providers were given 90 days’ notice of contract terminations on a number of dates ranging from December last year and January this year.
Dublin City Community Co-op has been helping and supporting the refugees.
CEO Noel Wardick described the actions and decisions of the government as "a disgrace".
"It is an absolute disaster for their (pupils) education and for their ongoing development. It’s absolutely unacceptable, it's heartless...those who are making these decisions need to have a long, hard think about the impact that they're having on women and children.
"They're being asked to make their lives in Ireland, being asked to contribute, to get jobs, to settle, to integrate, to be part of the community and are making huge efforts to do that and very often, just as that's done, that's achieved, the Government decides, well, we're moving you and you could be scattered to the four corners of the country."
The Department is meeting residents to offer follow-on accommodation to those who need it.
While it has said every effort would be made to keep residents as close to their current location as possible, this may not always be possible.
A spokesperson said: "We need to provide the best we can for all those who come to Ireland fleeing the war, and other areas of war or oppression, while balancing this with the requirement to make best possible use of State funds."
In the last 24 hours, almost half of the residents - including a woman who is receiving cancer treatment - have been informed that they will be moved to an equestrian centre in Co Kildare.
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