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

I will answer the Chair's question on the issue of refugee returns to Syria first. Any returns of refugees or displaced persons must be voluntary, dignified and safe. It is the assessment of reputable experts and, above all, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, that such conditions are not in place right now. EU law and other international legal obligations rightly prevent EU member states from returning individuals to situations where they would face extreme danger. In our view, this is clearly the case in Syria right now.

As regards the Danish decision, I understand that authorities in Denmark have concluded that it is safe for refugees to return to parts of Syria. It is for Denmark's authorities to come to their own conclusions. Domestically, the Minister for Justice has a policy responsibility for this issue. From my perspective, I note that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees does not consider Syria safe for refugees to return there. I have a very good relationship with my Danish colleague and I will certainly raise that issue with him.

In relation to returns from Lebanon, since 2011, that country has absorbed an estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees, which is a number equivalent to almost one third of its population. The scale of the influx has placed enormous strain on the country. I fully understand Lebanese concerns about the impact on the country of hosting such large numbers of refugees. I am also aware of concerns raised about the situation of Syrian refugees in Lebanon. I commend civic society organisations on their vital work in safeguarding the well-being and rights of refugees in Lebanon. Ireland has been consistently clear that refugee returns must be voluntary and safe. The UNHCR is clear that it is not safe for refugees to return to Syria, not yet at any rate. Ireland has resettled more than 1,600 refugees from Lebanon. In 2019, the Government further committed to welcoming 2,900 refugees between 2020 and 2023, most of whom will be Syrian, who are living in Jordan and Lebanon.

I may have an opportunity to visit Lebanon before the Dáil breaks up for the summer. I hope to be able to visit our troops in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, in southern Lebanon, perhaps in late June or early July. If I do, I would certainly like to have political discussions in Beirut as well. Even though there is effectively no functioning government in Lebanon right now, this is certainly one of the issues I can raise directly while there. On COVAX and access to vaccines, we will certainly take note of the report the committee has put together.

In relation to Deputy Clarke's questions on accountability and action as regards sexual violence in Tigray, the place to start is to shine a light on the issue, which is what we have been trying to do. We have been asking many very uncomfortable questions, which is what we need to do. We now have, effectively, the appropriate UN body investigating what is happening in Tigray. I hope, if we get names, accounts and evidence, we will be able to follow up in order to hold to account individuals who have sanctioned, ordered or participated in sexual violence as part of that conflict. That would ensure there will be no impression of impunity when it comes to sexual violence in conflict zones.

The Deputy is right about the impact of Covid-19 on women. Ireland will continue to focus on women's empowerment and gender equality in our development programme. Economic empowerment programmes will be particularly important as women have lost ground economically in terms of employment during Covid. It has also had a huge impact on education and education for girls is always what suffers first. I do not have the exact figure to hand, but we are committing a considerable amount of money in our development programme, distributed through UN organisations, for the education of girls in Africa.

It is a big part of our Irish Aid commitment. We will have to double down on those efforts because Covid has clearly set back sustainable development goals, generally, in terms of meeting targets by 2030. It has also had a disproportionate impact on women as part of those goals. That is very much recognised within the Department and in my office.

Deputies Gannon and Clarke both raised the issue of TRIPS. When I said it is not simplistic, what I was talking about was upscaling output from 3 billion to 11 billion doses is not simplistic in terms of any one solution that can do it. Am I saying or do I believe intellectual property rights should be an impediment to expanding the manufacturing capacity of safe vaccines globally? No, I do not. I do not believe intellectual property rights should not be allowed be an impediment to that. How we expand manufacturing capacity in a way that continues to ensure companies invest heavily in the research needed to continue to advance towards the next generation of vaccines as well as sharing knowledge and intellectual property rights to allow countries like India, which have significant manufacturing capacity in pharmaceuticals, to ratchet up their output is something on which we have to find a way forward. If it is the India-South Africa proposal we can work with, that is great. If it is a version of that, that is what we will have to try to advocate for.

Ireland has to advocate within the European Union for an EU approach. Perhaps first and foremost that is where we can be most impactful, because the Commission negotiates on our behalf on WTO issues. Certainly, from my perspective, and I say this as somebody who lives ten minutes from the second-largest pharmaceutical cluster in the European Union, in Cork, it is not morally acceptable for us to allow a legal intellectual property argument to prevent or slow down the manufacturing of life-saving vaccines.

We have shown a capacity in the past to respond to other diseases in terms of vaccine output, but we must also ensure there is quality control and capacity because this is not just about intellectual property; it is also about know-how. Producing these vaccines in the timeframe that will be demanded of companies requires partnerships and know-how that many of the operators that have researched and manufactured vaccines to date need to be a part of. We should be seriously looking at a TRIPS waiver for the reasons I have just outlined, but that will not solve the problem on its own. That is what I am saying. It is a more complex problem in terms of ensuring we get the kind of volumes of vaccines that are needed. As Deputy Clarke suggested, we must move from 3.5 billion to 11 billion doses to meet the global demand.

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam concerns more than Ethiopia and Egypt but that is, of course, where the real tension lies. It also involves Sudan. There have been a number of attempts to try to get a diplomatic solution to this matter involving several countries and international organisations. As of yet, it has not worked. I was in Cairo, possibly two years ago at this stage, to discuss this issue with the Egyptian foreign minister and he was very uncompromising in his message. This could be the source of real regional tension if we cannot get a solution to it. There is enough conflict in this region linked to a whole range of other matters that we have not even had a chance to touch on, without this issue adding to it even further.

On girls' education and that large figure I talked about, Ireland will invest at least €250 million by 2024 in girls' education and education in emergencies, which is everything from education in refugee camps to vulnerable and post-conflict populations and so on. Do not forget there are approximately 75 million people in refugee camps. When one thinks about that, it is quite extraordinary. It is the population of Germany in refugee camps. The challenges of education in the context of Covid-19, in particular, when many schools have been closed down in an effort to prevent spread, are huge. Again, €250 million over the space of a couple of years is a big commitment from an Irish perspective.

I apologise to Deputy Gannon who asked about Russia and there were questions earlier on Donbas. There was a big military build-up on the Ukrainian border which, as one would expect, was causing much concern within the EU and, from what I hear, within NATO countries as well. Perhaps that tension has eased a little bit but Ukraine is a real concern for the EU and the support for the Ukrainian Government and the sovereign integrity of that country is something the EU has to, and does, stand for.

The Navalny case is seen in the European Union as simply silencing a credible critic of the Russian Government. Within the EU, there is real concern about Alexei Navalny's health and we continue to call not only for access to healthcare but healthcare that he can trust, which has not been the case. Of course, we have been public, vocal and critical of arbitrary detention of people who are legitimately raising concerns through marches, rallies and peaceful demonstration. It is not a good situation.

Likewise, in terms of Belarus, we have been as supportive as we possibly can be of the opposition movement in the context of the demand for free and fair elections which any country should be entitled to. We do not believe that the last presidential election in Belarus was in any way credible. I say that as someone who has been in Belarus and, ironically, the most high-profile opposition spokesperson who is outside of Belarus at present has strong connections with Ireland. We have been as supportive of her as we can be.

Senator Craughwell referred to the Passport Office which, by the way, never closed during the pandemic. I know the impression is there that it has been closed. It was closed to the public for public health reasons but approximately 235,000 passports have been issued since the first restrictions were put in place in response to Covid-19 in March of last year. This year, we continue to provide thousands of passports every week, predominantly the applications that are online and pretty straightforward and, of course, emergency passports people need.

However, we need to move beyond that and I anticipate a significant increase in demand for passports as we move through the summer because many people who have not even thought about international travel may start thinking about international travel again and other people may need passports for other reasons in terms of identity.

We regard passports as an essential service in terms of renewal and getting passports for children and so on, so we have had one third of our team in the Passport Office. It is a confined office. They work in close proximity to each other and we need to make sure that we do that safely. We want to be able to move to 50% to 70% so that we can really ratchet up capacity. There is an overhang, particularly in terms of people who have paperwork stuck in the system for a number of months.

Approximately 90,000 people are waiting. We can clear that backlog quickly, in the space of approximately six weeks, once there is a significant increase in our team in the Passport Office but we must do it safely. I hope people will understand that people working in close proximity to one another need be able to do that safely.

I do not want to go into the detail in terms of travel, but the Government will be looking at international travel in terms of a discussion as to how we approach the reopening of international travel over time. We will be doing that later this month.

The European Commission is developing what will be a helpful data tool to which countries throughout the European Union will contribute data on people's Covid-19 status and we have the systems to be able to do this. It means that when a passenger comes through an airport, he or she will have a code on his or her mobile phone that can be scanned to give his or her Covid-19 health status in terms of whether he or she has been vaccinated, PCR tested or has had Covid-19 and recovered. On the basis of having that consistent and trusted data throughout the European Union, countries will be able to make decisions as to what level of easing of restrictions on international travel they will facilitate and for what category of person.

That is a debate we need to have but I hope that later on in the summer, we will be able to facilitate people who are fully vaccinated to be able to participate in international travel. The restrictions and management of them, obviously, need to be discussed with our public health team to make sure we do it safely. The public would expect that of us.

My view on a border poll is that we have many complex and difficult issues to resolve with the British Government and political leaders and communities in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is a place of tension, polarisation, anxiety and worry at present. Many people are worried about what the summer might hold in terms of a marching season, bonfires, potential protests, violence and so on. We must try to reduce the temperature in terms of political interaction, not increase it. I do not believe that calling for an immediate border poll is helpful in that context. Instead, we must try to bed down and support the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement. We must try to rebuild relationships that have been damaged - and I include myself in that - to try to rebuild an atmosphere of trust again. Of course, the aspiration for a border poll is perfectly legitimate, just as is the aspiration to maintain Northern Ireland as part of the Union. Many people hold strong views.

For now, whether it is Brexit, protocol issues, policing or protecting the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement, not just the Assembly and the Executive but also North-South Ministerial Council meetings and east-west infrastructure between Dublin and London, we must use all of those institutions to maintain calm and show people that politics works. I hope that as we improve relationships, many of these discussions will be taken forward in time but there are immediate challenges we face and they need to be the focus.

We are focusing on peacekeeping mandates in the Security Council. Senator Craughwell had recognised that. We can maintain our current missions. We may choose to evolve those missions into a focus on other parts of the world, over time, and we have had an initial discussion with the Defence Forces on that. In terms of the numbers that we contribute to overseas peacekeeping missions, I have no intention of reducing Ireland's footprint overseas.

That means we must get better at recruitment and retention to make sure we build up the numbers. We are 1,000 people short of where we should be in terms of our overall Defence Forces contingent, as Senator Craughwell knows, but we are working hard to try to change that and we will be successful but it will take some time.

On the Iranian Embassy, one should have embassies in countries with which one has disagreements and to which one has different foreign policy approaches, as well as in countries with which one has significant consistency in that regard.

In my view, Iran is a significant regional actor. We have real concerns with much of what it has done and is doing but we have made a commitment to open an embassy by 2023. Of course, our role on the Security Council reinforces the need for this. We are the facilitator on the Security Council of Resolution 2231, which essentially is the Iranian nuclear deal. Not to have a presence or footprint in Teheran in this context would be wrong. This is why we will have a diplomatic footprint in Teheran very soon. It will be in the German Embassy initially, working in partnership with Germany and using its facilities but having a separate office ourselves. Over time we will go through the process of finding an appropriate location to have an embassy of our own at some point over the coming years.

I believe I have answered everybody's questions. I apologise for going a little bit over time but they were important questions.