Ukrainians living in Ireland will be offered a “generous” package to return home as the government plans to end all contracts for refugee accommodation within a year.

Senior government officials have begun discussing significant changes to Ireland’s offering for Ukrainians as ministers favour either an end to the temporary protection directive, or an alternative that could limit supports solely to people from the worst-affected areas of Ukraine.

Colm Brophy, the Fine Gael minister of state for migration, said the government would move to terminate the remaining contracts under which about 16,000 Ukrain­ians were accommodated.

“That is what we want to really end. We want to end the situation where the 16,000 that came at the very start, that have effectively been accommodated by the state since their arrival, that we would be pulling out of that. Because no other EU state is providing that,” Brophy said.

“They will be having to leave because we will be ending the ­contracts. And the timeline is the critical thing here. We have a clear direction. I want to see that ­timeline be something we conclude in the next 12 months. We have to finalise that as a decision of government.”

He said officials were working on a returns policy, to coincide with the end of the directive, which would ask Ukrainians to return home and offer them financial supports to do so. At present, asylum seekers can apply for up to €2,500 for an individual or up to €10,000 per family to return to their country of origin.