Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour) | Oireachtas source

There are approximately 80 Irish citizens who have registered with my Department and who are resident in Syria. We have been advising all Irish citizens to leave Syria since March 2012.

Ireland has provided in excess of €14 million in assistance since the crisis began. The total includes support to NGOs partners as well as to members of the Red Cross or Red Crescent and six different UN agencies. My colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Joe Costello, is today attending the Second International Humanitarian Pledging Conference for Syria and its neighbouring region in Kuwait, where he has announced Ireland’s pledge of €12 million in support of the humanitarian relief effort over the course of 2014.

I have discussed the humanitarian situation inside Syria and of Syrian refugees with my colleagues at the Foreign Affairs Council on numerous occasions since the start of the conflict. The Syrian crisis was most recently discussed at the European Council on 19 and 20 December 2013, which reiterated the EU's continuing deep concern at the humanitarian situation, and reaffirmed the EU's commitment to working for increased humanitarian access to those in need and the provision of adequate funding for the humanitarian relief effort.

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