John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the ambassador for meeting with us and for his opening statement and his responses to some good questions. I commend his country and Government on their response. It is obviously very challenging because 270,000 refugees going into any country, fleeing war and persecution, is an awful lot. An increase of about 5.5% in the population over four weeks can be expected to put huge pressures on systems. The ambassador touched on how much pressure his country's health service is under at this point and into the future. Does the ambassador have a figure for how many of the 270,000 refugees are still in the country? How many have moved on to other countries? I know it is very fluid when we are dealing with up to 10,000 additional refugees arriving every day.

Deputy Harkin touched on the major concern highlighted by the EU Commissioner for Home Affairs, Yiva Johansson, when she spoke about the potential for human trafficking, particularly of children. An estimated figure has been given for Romania of 500 unaccompanied minors or children having arrived there. Does the ambassador have a figure for children or unaccompanied minors who have arrived in Slovakia? I appreciate he did not have the full information as to what response is being taken or whether the actions that have been announced have been implemented yet, but he might have a rough figure.

Last week we had the ambassador's colleagues from a number of countries before the committee, including the Moldovan ambassador. One thing she said that struck me was that they were only starting the conversations with some of the NGOs and international humanitarian groups, the likes of the Red Cross. What action on the ground have those NGOs undertaken? Is more assistance required from the humanitarian perspective?