Ms Barbara Nolan:

Okay, will do. First of all, several of the questioners have made the point that this is not only a European crisis. This is true. We have to acknowledge the huge sacrifice and effort that countries such as Jordan, the Lebanon and Turkey have made. They have taken in a huge amount of people and given them refuge. We should also acknowledge that, as far as I know, the United States has offered to take in at least 10,000 until 2017. Who knows, that may increase later on. Canada has also offered to take people.

We are exploring all avenues to ensure that this stays on the world agenda as well. It has become a European problem because these people are arriving here. We are physically closer to them but of course it is a world problem. Our vice-president, Ms Mogherini, who is in charge of external relations, is committed to pursuing all the UN options in terms of trying to get agreement about dealing with the root causes of this.

The Chairman mentioned Syria, which is a very complex situation. We do not have an army. There is no European army, despite what one might read in the newspapers sometimes. This is a serious situation that will probably take many years to resolve. I do not have a crystal ball. As regards what Deputy Kyne asked me, the general feeling is that this problem is going to continue for some time. Nobody thinks we are necessarily going to stop the flow overnight. However, if we apply these different elements in our armoury we can perhaps make some kind of effort certainly to stop the worst excesses of it, which are the people smuggling aspect. We will try to deal with that situation.

I mentioned the trust fund for Africa and there will also be a trust fund for Syria, which the EU will start funding. It is looking for other countries, including ones outside the EU, to contribute to it.

There was an announcement today about that. It is a global issue but I am speaking today only about what we are doing.

We are working with the UN. Obviously, on the ground we work with the UNHCR dealing with the crisis. We do have internal stresses. In the Schengen area some member states have had to invoke temporary measures, which are foreseen under the Schengen rules which provide that where there is a serious threat to public policy or internal security a member state may exceptionally reintroduce border controls at its internal borders for a limited period. Anything that has been done in that regard until now has been completely in line with what is foreseen under the Schengen borders code. This is not something we would like to see continue. We all value the ability to be able to move freely in the EU, it is one of the huge benefits of being in the EU and we would like to see the situation return to normal as soon as it can.

We always have provision in the EU budget for emergencies but of course there was already quite a lot of money going towards dealing with many of these issues before. We are now upping the game from areas of the budget that allow us to deal with it. We cannot reopen our multi-annual financial framework but we are doing what we can to boost particular areas. For example, even under the social fund, to which most, if not all member states have access, some of that money can be used for example, for integration of migrants, language training and such like. There is also a fund from the EU to support each relocated migrant up to the tune of €6,000, which will go to those member states that accept the relocation of migrants.