Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The challenge has been to make sure that what has been agreed will work. This is why we have been debating it for some time. There are member states under significantly more pressure than other countries. I have mentioned Italy, Cyprus and Greece. What we are placing on them is a significant onus to process a significant number of people who will be coming into Europe or who are already coming into Europe. They will then be responsible for the processing of applications and potentially accommodating them. It is very important that we have this solidarity mechanism as a country where the vast majority of arrivals are secondary movements. For us to return them, we have to have some sort of solidarity mechanism to show we are in this together and working together.

The way the 2.1% figure has been worked out is 50% GDP and 50% population. While our economy is doing well, our population is much lower and it balances out at 2.16%. The number, 648 people, is relatively small when we consider that last year alone we had more than 13,200 people seeking international protection. At the same time, we would not have to accept 648 people; we could decide to pay more than €12 million instead or we could provide support by way of officials to assist them in the countries of origin. There are different ways-----