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

In terms of numbers, although we are not bound by the relevant EU justice and home affairs legislation, Ireland voluntarily opted into an EU relocation decision that was made in 2015 and agreed to take up to 4,000 migrants. To date, Ireland has admitted more than 2,600 people under EU relocation and resettlement programmes.

It is expected that the rest of these numbers will be filled by the end of 2019 through pledges for programme refugees and by approximately 630 family reunification arrivals under the new Irish Refugee Protection Programme, IRPP, humanitarian admissions programme. That is a structured relocation programme for migrants. Asylum seeking is a separate issue. Anybody from anywhere can arrive in Ireland and can claim that they are fleeing persecution and therefore claim asylum. We have a legal obligation to go through the process and to look after the needs of those people during that process, which is what direct provision was set up for 20 years ago or more. As I said, there are many countries, including in the EU, that have far fewer supports in place for asylum seekers than we have. That is not to say we are doing great or anything; we can always do better. There is no such thing as a quota for asylum seekers. The numbers who arrive have to be dealt with under international law. That also has to involve, in some circumstances, deportation. We cannot have a credible migration policy unless we are honest with people. We accommodate people who are genuine asylum seekers and we have got to say to people who are not, who are economic migrants but who do not come here under the appropriate visa programmes, we have got to say to those people that we are sorry but there is a way to come to Ireland under a work visa programme and if they do not qualify, they have to go home. If we are not consistent on that, it is hard to get the broader public to buy into a generous migration strategy, which I believe we should have, by the way. I am very liberal when it comes to migration but it is all well and good saying that; we have to have a system that works. We have to be able to accommodate the numbers who are here. At the moment, we are right at the edge of that in terms of direct provision and not having enough places, which is why we need new direct provision centres. We have to work with communities to make that happen.

In terms of sanctions, many sanctions target individuals or their financial assets through travel bans or through specific targeting of individuals in power. I think there is a role for sanctions. Without sanctions, we have very few tools in the toolkit, frankly. If we are simply appealing to a dictator, in some cases, to change his ways, to have elections, to respect international law, but actually have no means to use a stick as well as a carrot, if we are ruling out military intervention which I believe we should, sanctions do play a role. Sanctions have changed the approach of governments and individuals in different parts of the world. We need to be careful with how sanctions are used. Sometimes they can contribute to the misery of the broader public in a country. That is why they need to be constantly assessed. If we are not going to agree with military intervention, we have to look at other ways of persuasion or facilitating change in line with the standards that we should be expecting in the European Union. I think there is a role for sanctions but we need to constantly assess how they are working and how targeted they are.

Finally on Georgia, the prolongation of so-called frozen conflicts remains a source of concern. They pose a challenge to reform efforts and undermine stability in the wider region. This is in respect of the ongoing Russia-Georgia conflict. There remain serious challenges regarding the situation of internally displaced persons and of human rights in the breakaway territories of South Ossetia and Abkhasia. In recent weeks there has been an escalation along the administrative boundary lines with the Russia-backed breakaway regions, with both sides reinforcing checkpoints and security infrastructure. The EU has called for both sides to show maximum restraint and avoid escalation. Technical discussions at the incident prevention and response mechanism have de-escalated the situation somewhat but tensions remain high. The EU continues to engage as co-chair of the Geneva international discussions, including the continued presence on the ground of the EU monitoring mission, which has three Irish members. This is something we will continue to watch closely and which I will continue to discuss with my EU colleagues to ensure that we keep it on the agenda.