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

According to the UNHCR, more than 50 million people are fleeing war and conflicts worldwide and many more are looking for a better future, as we well know. Obviously we cannot accommodate everyone in Europe without endangering our own societal cohesion, but clearly there is an enormous humanitarian issue in Europe right now that needs a comprehensive response. There are many different elements to this response.

Over the years, Ireland has always lived up to its international humanitarian obligations, and we are fully committed to playing our part in addressing the migration crisis facing Europe. We have all been shocked and upset at what we have seen in southern and central Europe and the distressing scenes during rescues in the Mediterranean, and we must do all we can. We have been working proactively over the months. At the EU Justice and Home Affairs Council meetings, the Taoiseach, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Flanagan, and myself have all been involved in developing the European action programme on migration to deal with these issues over many months, often behind the scenes, but also in the Council meetings, working through how the European Union can proactively be involved in this issue and deal with the crisis on its doorstep. There are many elements to this comprehensive response: working with the African countries where development is needed; providing more humanitarian aid, which the Heads of State will be discussing this evening; working with people who are already in the refugee camps and trying to ensure the standards in those camps are good enough for people to remain there until they are processed; and helping people to get through the various processes in an orderly way. We need more legal routes to Europe - of that there is no doubt - but we do need to have some further controls over the current situation. That was part of the discussion yesterday.

The situation changed rapidly over the summer months, and that is why the Minister for Defence, Deputy Coveney, approached the Government proactively to send the LE Eithneand subsequently the LE Niamhand the LE Samuel Beckettto the Mediterranean to carry out vital rescue missions, which they have done very successfully. Not many other countries are doing that. We have also given €41 million in aid to Syria. It is a very complex issue in both Syria and Libya, and we do need the international community, including Ireland, to play its part to resolve the conflict in Syria. More efforts need to be made at every level, including in the UN and internationally, between Russia, the United States, China and so on. Everyone who has a voice should be using that voice. I can only agree with the Deputies on that, because we need to get a resolution as so many of the refugees are coming from war-torn Syria and Eritrea.

Two weeks ago, the Government decided that Ireland will accept up to 4,000 persons overall under EU resettlement and relocation programmes. Some 520 programme refugees are currently being resettled in Ireland directly from refugee camps in Lebanon. We have already had staff out working to identify the people who are in a position to come to Ireland, and they have started arriving. We have also agreed to the extra numbers. We have opted into the EU emergency relocation measure. We had a choice as to whether to do that and we decided to do so. It will, of course, be discussed in the Dáil and the Seanad. There will be a motion here next week to allow a detailed discussion on that. I also informed the EU Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting yesterday that we would not be taking up the option we have to wait three months, as we do when we opt into decisions. We could have delayed the whole process but we did not want to do that, so we agreed to opt in immediately. Denmark was not in a position to opt in because of its own constitutional position and the UK did not do so either, but we said we would come in.

The Government has now set up the Irish refugee protection programme. I chaired a meeting with 25 different groups which have a contribution to make in working towards solutions here, providing accommodation and taking up those voluntary offers of approximately 16,000 places. Not all those places would be feasible to take up in the first instance because people need to have the assessment as to their refugee status done first in the orientation centres, and we have agreed that would be done on a priority basis in the next couple of weeks. Once the people arrive from Italy and Greece, they will be assessed immediately as to their refugee status, but it is expected that between 80% and 90% of them will immediately get refugee status.

This is a new type of programme. We have not had a programme like this previously where those who will come here are identified in Italy and Greece in the first instance in these centres that are being set up there this week. The suitable persons will be identified to come to Ireland and they will then be given the opportunity to have that assessment done here and to be accommodated here. There will be short-term issues but also medium and long-term ones.

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