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

To take up the phrase the Deputy used, that Europe has done very little, I attended the meeting of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers on Monday, and if the Deputy heard my Swedish, French, Belgian, Croatian and many other colleagues, he would not say this. I understand the perspective he is using to state it has to do with the relocation programme. The reason I state he would not say what he said, that Europe is not doing very much, is if he saw the hundreds of thousands of refugee migrants who are arriving in those countries which are all responding and providing facilities of varying types and trying to do their very best. In fact, the situation now is that it is very difficult for countries such as Austria and Sweden, to name just two, to take any more of the flow that is coming across the Balkans in particular. Those countries have tens of thousands of those people who have crossed the Mediterranean and who have come in through the Balkans. They are looking after them in their countries.

The point the Deputy made on the relocation programme is correct. Very small numbers - a couple of hundred - have been relocated to various European countries. The reason for this is the migrants who are arriving are not registering and there is not the capacity to force them to register in the various hotspots being set up for the relocation to start working effectively. This is because the migrants want to move to Germany and Sweden and this flow is continuing. We discussed this in detail. Ireland is ready and recently accepted the first Syrian family. It is not because we are putting up any barriers that people have not arrived. It is because of the situation I just described. We are ready.

We have had all the task force meetings. I had a meeting with all the church bodies just two weeks ago and they are all ready to help migrants, who in all likelihood will be assessed very quickly as refugees, as is the Red Cross, which co-ordinated the voluntary offers of help. The relocation mechanism depends on these hot spots working effectively and the migrants registering in them and understanding that relocation to different European countries is possible and that they do not have to continue their flight to Sweden and Germany, because that is often their choice.

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