Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The South Sudan crisis is one of the most severe large scale humanitarian crises in the world today. The Senator is right to say it is largely an invisible crisis because it does not get anything like the same coverage as many of other humanitarian crises. Widespread violence from the bitter civil war which broke out in December 2013 has forced more than 4 million people to flee their homes. Conflict and violence have caused massive displacement, with 2 million displaced within the country and over 2 million South Sudanese refugees in neighbouring countries, including Uganda, Ethiopia, Sudan and Kenya. I was in Ethiopia and Kenya a few months ago. Sixty per cent of these refugees are children, 7 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance; hunger and malnutrition are widespread and 5.7 million people are in urgent need of food assistance. The UN's 2018 humanitarian response plan for South Sudan requires US$1.7 billion to reach 6 million people with lifesaving assistance. Ireland has provided consistent humanitarian assistance to South Sudan with direct support of over €54 million provided from 2012 to date. In 2017 Ireland provided almost €12 million and we will provide strong support again this year.

Ireland is a strong supporter of the central emergency response fund, CERF, and is the eighth largest donor. CERF dispersed over US$15.5 million to South Sudan and will continue this. So far this year €3.5 million has been provided to our partners on the ground who are reaching the most vulnerable and those most in need of humanitarian assistance. It is anticipated that funding of at least €5 million by Ireland will be provided to South Sudan by the end of this year.

It is yet another humanitarian response and one we are part of. A number of Irish NGOs are also involved there. I am happy to be corrected, but I think a former Deputy and Minister of State, Deputy Jimmy Deenihan, is involved in a practical way with one of the NGOs working on the ground on water access and the sinking of wells.

I was asked about visas for the USA. Officials have met with officials from the US Embassy and been assured there has been no policy change. They are happy to request further meetings to follow up on issues the Senator raises today. I will happily try to make that happen because while the official position is the official position, if we have anecdotal evidence to suggest things are changing in practice, we must raise that.

On the reciprocal arrangement, as the Senator refers to it, I am slow to go into detail. For the record, I note that we are working hard to find ways to help the undocumented Irish in the USA. We must think about how we can be smart politically in terms of doing this and build support on Capitol Hill to facilitate a change and recognition of the Irish people who have been in the USA for a long time and who want to regularise their positions. While we have made some progress in that area, I am very slow to raise expectations to try to create a momentum on which we cannot then follow through. Migration is a very sensitive issue on Capitol Hill and any change is difficult to bring about. Deputy John Deasy from Waterford has done a great deal of work in this area, particularly in talking to Democrat and Republican Congressmen. We have had some pretty high level meetings in Washington on this issue and it was a topic of conversation for the Taoiseach and the President on St. Patrick’s Day. There is a real effort to make progress but I do not want to raise expectations unduly given the legislative challenge involved in what we are trying to do.