Noel Grealish (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted Ms O'Hara got the opportunity to visit the committee and I compliment the UNHCR on its tremendous work. I have a few points to make and a few questions.

Ms O'Hara mentioned the 1 million refugees in northern Lebanon. I visited the refugee camps in northern Lebanon two years ago. Has Ms O'Hara been there recently and what is the situation? Many of these people do not want to become so-called refugees. They just want to go back home. At a conference in Beirut which was attended by many of the religious leaders from all over the Middle East, I said that I was not speaking about what dictators such as Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi did, but that there was religious freedom under them. When these dictators were taken out, there was no solution. These people we are speaking about do not want to become refugees.

The western world cannot keep taking refugees from the Middle East. I remember meeting one family and all the woman said was that she wanted to go home to her town in Syria. That woman had to leave because she was Christian. This will continue unless there is a political solution based on the Middle East. The superpowers have to work together to find a solution. We cannot be using the Middle East as a pawn between Russia and the United States. Western-type culture cannot be imposed on the Middle East.

The Middle East is thousands of years old and the United States of America is only a couple of hundred years old. I was in Egypt with my colleague, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and that came up. The solution for the Middle East must be found within the Middle East. Iran, Iraq and all of these countries have to work, perhaps with financial support from the Western world, if we are to get a political solution within the Middle East.

What is the situation like in the camps in Lebanon? We are taking a number of families from Syria in my own county of Galway. I have been invited to meet them when they arrive and I look forward to that. Last night, President Trump said he was going to ban people from various countries, including Syria. There will also be Brexit in England, which is also going to have a knock-on effect. This is worrying. These countries are going to close their borders to refugees and to providing them with new lives and opportunities. It is going to put more pressure on other countries. Perhaps Ms O'Hara could comment on that.