He has been calling on the Irish Government to remove its visa requirement so that his Ukrainian family can enter Ireland.
An Irishman stuck in Kyiv has said he sees now that "the panic is beginning" in the Ukrainian capital.
Louth native Brendan Murphy made the comments on Thursday morning after Russia launched
a full-scale invasion of Ukraine overnight.
Murphy had been trying in recent days to leave the country with his Ukrainian wife Marina and her family but has had difficulties obtaining a visa for them.
Ireland is the only country in the EU where you need to get a visa to enter Ireland from Ukraine.
Murphy has called on the Irish Government to introduce a temporary visa concession scheme for family members of Irish citizens in Ukraine.
"I'm sure you know, the issue of the visas - that was not resolved," he told
Newstalk Breakfast following the invasion.
“Yesterday, we tried to get a document but my mother-in-law, who is 80, became stressed and unwell. She couldn’t walk and she fell so we needed to bring her back."
“The plan was that they'd offered to send someone to do the document at her home because she was unwell but that's not going to happen now.
"So the first thing we need to do is to relocate out of the city centre where the missiles will strike whenever Putin decides to bomb Kyiv and then we’ll see what we are advised to do.
"Obviously, systems that were relied on like taxis, public transport - they are not able to support anybody wanting to relocate.”
Asked about the mood in the capital, Murphy described it as "sombre".
“People are relocating because... Putin has bombed multiple cities and of course, he is going to bomb substantially more,” he told the programme.
“So, people are concerned about that and of course, people are trying to go to locations that are safe. But then, the Ukrainian people, we have no choice, we have to fight.”
“I can see now the panic is beginning,” he added.
"People are trying to get money from banks and things so people are beginning to kind of do everything they can.”
Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney later also appeared on
Newstalk Breakfast and was asked about a potential visa concession for Ukrainian relatives of Irish citizens.
"Because Ireland is outside of the Schengen Area which is the common travel area effectively across the European Union... Ireland is the only country in the European Union where you need to get a visa to come from Ukraine to come here," he explained.
"I spoke yesterday to [Justice Minister] Helen McEntee about changing that in response to a war.
"We're meeting this morning to discuss that further and I expect that we will be generous in terms of ensuring that people who want to leave Ukraine and need to leave Ukraine quickly and have a connection to Ireland or may have extended family here - that they're not going to have to leave family members or children behind.
"But that decision hasn't been finalised yet. We're just looking at how we do it."
Coveney also said on Thursday that it is not possible for Irish citizens to fly out of Ukraine now as the airspace is "not safe".
"The advice to Irish citizens there is to stay where you are and stay safe and obviously, we'll continue to advise them," he stated.
