Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy is right that the conditions in those countries have to be improved.

The vast majority of migrants coming through now come from quite a range of countries but many come from Syria and Eritrea. Clearly, the breakdown of governance - the conflict situations - are the root causes of the problem. The Deputy is absolutely right that greater global work needs to be done to deal with those conflict situations and to ensure that there is governance in those countries in order that people are not as vulnerable as they clearly are at present.

Ireland being outside the Schengen Agreement is in a different position. However, I certainly have been very strong in saying that we want to respond in a humanitarian manner. We immediately responded to the request for resettlement of Syrian and Eritrean refugees when we were asked to do so some months ago. We are taking slightly above the numbers requested. We have resettled approximately 2,000 people during the past ten years. That has happened where people have been assessed as refugees. We have also received a new request for the relocation of refugees which we now have to consider.

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