Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy has raised a number of questions. Clearly, this has been the focus of the European Council meetings for more than a year. The root cause of much of this is the war in Syria. I am glad to see that, at long last, tentative steps towards peace talks are beginning, although it might be some time before they begin to focus on what needs to be done. The Deputy is aware of the United Nations Secretary General's comments. The problem with the unprecedented scale of people leaving Syria is not going to end until this problem is dealt with. Can the Deputy imagine, for instance, if all of Munster and all of Connacht were to walk to Northern Ireland and take rickety boats to Britain or somewhere else? The scale of evacuation and movement is unprecedented.

The Deputy asked what steps are being taken. The European Union, in particular the Schengen countries, agreed on a process of what they called hotspots for registration and recognition of people. Great difficulties have been experienced in Italy and even more so in Greece, given the numbers coming across from Turkey. Deputy O'Brien is aware of the numbers - just more than 1 million in south Lebanon, with 25% of its population now Syrian, 1.2 million in Jordan and more than 2 million in Turkey, with others coming in from other countries through Turkey who want to get to Europe as well. In respect of the scale of the camps in Turkey, the European Union agreed to put up €3 billion in consultation with the Turkish Government and, in an effort to maintain people in Turkey, the majority of whom would like to go back to Syria if peace were to happen, agreed to open some of the pre-accession chapters for consideration to become an eventual member of the European Union.

Islam is a religion of peace and should not be confused in the sense of being the cause of this. The Islamic religion is one of peace.

Ireland stands united with the European Union, as I stated in my response in respect of France. When we consider that the Assad regime is being maintained by Russia and Iran and that the United States and Europe have supported the removal of that regime, I am not sure what is going to happen in the short term. While the situation continues, Daesh or ISIS, has continued to carry out these abominable and horrific beheadings and assaults on men, women and children. These rapes and beheadings and assaults are appalling crimes against humanity. In that respect, when we see reports of videos making claims of further terrorist activities in different countries, these cause enormous complications.

As Deputy O'Brien will be aware, the state of emergency continues in Paris, France and is being extended to other areas. This is causing enormous difficulties for the economy, with reduced visitor numbers and hospitality potential. Further difficulties will be experienced in regard to the European championships and the huge numbers of fans who will travel from different countries. Questions will arise as to whether the state of emergency should be maintained following the declaration of war by the French President. These serious issues must be fully considered.

In so far as we are concerned, shortly after the French atrocity, a meeting of the appropriate emergency committee was held here and it was briefed on security and other developments. These matters and information are monitored carefully by the Garda Commissioner and intelligence units here. In that regard, Palestine has always been a case in point. The attitude adopted now is that the two-state solution should apply but clearly there are strong differences of opinion about the substantial Israeli settlements on the West Bank, involving thousands of people. These issues are all part of the discussions that take place on the occasion of every Council meeting and between them. High Representative Federica Mogherini provides reports to the Council.

Clearly, we also consider the entire Middle East, the situation now with Saudi Arabia and neighbouring countries, the numbers of people on the Libyan shore wanting to cross the Mediterranean, the war in Syria, the war on terrorism and the capacity of Daesh or ISIL to radicalise young people without having to visit a country. There is also information from many countries and their security forces that particular locations have been visited with a view to the potential to carry out terrorist atrocities. This is a serious matter. Any incident carries with it enormous cost, even for example, an incident like that when the Minister for Transport here was contacted last week about the Turkish flight with a suspected bomb on board having to land at Shannon. There were the difficulties and costs involved in ensuring the aircraft could land safely and be checked out so that the passengers were not in danger on their onward journey. This was just one incident, so we can only imagine the situation in France, with serious frustration being expressed by air traffic controllers, taxi drivers on strike, direct threats from Daesh and the migrant crisis in Calais where serious numbers of children are without parents. This is one of the most serious issues affecting the European Union in a long time and has even threatened the Schengen arrangement.

Ireland has opted into the protocol and agreed to take significant numbers of Syrian families. That process is under way but the registration and identification of families to come here has been hampered by the inability to locate these hotspots properly, because the requirement to register people in huge numbers means they must be catered for in the location they are being registered. This means more camps but many of these people who have landed in Europe just want to move on to Austria, Germany or Sweden. Ireland does not rank among the desired countries. We can understand, therefore, the pressure in a country like Germany, where over 1 million refugees have made their way to in the past months. While it is still winter or early spring, as the warmer weather approaches the numbers of refugees wishing to cross from Turkey to Greece and into Europe will inevitably increase.

I believe the next meeting of the European Council must focus again on this issue. It is not easy to solve. When the tentative peace talks - which I hope work - get under way, I do not believe it will be easy to bring a conclusion to them and bring about an arrangement. However, it has been shown from speaking to Syrian refugees that the majority of them would like to return to Syrian if the current regime in Damascus was removed. Therein lies the problem.

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