John Paul Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing this debate and thank the Minister of State, Deputy Costello, for attending to deal with it. The issue concerns the plight of the Rohingya people from Burma. I must confess that, until very recently, it was a plight with which I was not too familiar. In Ireland, since 2009, there have been two communities of Rohingya people in Mayo and in Carlow town. I understand there are 75 to 80 people who were previously the occupants of refugee camps in Bangladesh and who were taken in by Ireland in 2009, having been displaced from their homeland in 1992.

I raise the issue today with the Minister of State and the Department primarily in view of the upcoming census that is due to take place in Burma at the end of March. As I understand it, this census is being partly funded by the European Union and it is the first such measure of population to have taken place in that country for more than 30 years. The estimated population of Burma is 60 million people from 135 different ethnic groups, so there is a huge amount of diversity within the borders of Burma currently. In particular, I want to speak of the plight of the Rohingya people, who are subject to terrible abuses, largely on the basis of their religion but also on the basis of pure ethnicity. The upcoming census is not going to provide them with the opportunity to state their ethnic background. The census forms have been printed and more than 100,000 invigilators have been appointed to cover the population of Burma. However, as I understand it, there are only eight principal ethnic groups to which people can say they belong, when in fact on the ground in Burma there are in excess of 135 different ethnic backgrounds. As a result, there is a great fear that many of the smaller ethnic groups within the country will just not be counted under their ethnic background, and this could have significant implications for them into the future.

I also want to raise with the Minister the ongoing civil rights abuses that are taking place within Burma against the Rohingya people. There was a massacre on 16 February where 16 people were shot in a wooded area on the borders of their homeland, which is near the Burma-Bangladesh border. Has the Minister of State or his senior colleague been in a position to raise the matter of the terrible abuses to which the Rohingya are subjected routinely? They are a peaceful people who simply wish to remain part of their own country. They need some hope for the future. I hope the census, which has been partly supported by the EU, may give an opportunity for the EU to have some input into the crisis that currently exists in that country.

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