Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Tánaiste for his reply. It is welcome, as he has stated, rightly, that the Syrian crisis was the main topic of discussion at the UN Security Council last week. Once again, however, the Council has been, as it is has been for so long, ineffective in dealing with this issue. As the Tánaiste said, the European Union is playing its part in providing humanitarian aid. After two and a half years of bloody conflict in Syria, more than 100,000 people are dead and 6.5 million are displaced, with over 2 million, or 10% of the Syrian population, now refugees in adjoining countries. All of these figures for different aspects of the crisis paint very clearly for us what a humanitarian disaster it is. In the first six months of this civil war 2,600 were people were killed; in the last six months that figure has risen to 30,000. The intensification of murders and the loss of life is frightening. Will the Tánaiste indicate whether the European Union is co-ordinating a response in assisting refugees from Syria and the wider area?

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