Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

In the short time available to me I propose to outline the response of the Government, through Irish Aid, to the crisis in Syria. I am pleased to have had the privilege of leading Irish Aid's response in the past two years, as Minister of State with responsibility for development and trade. Next month the first ever world humanitarian summit will be held in Istanbul. It was called by the United Nations Secretary General. The summit's host country, Turkey, has also become host to the world's largest refugee population in the past five years, with more than 2.7 million Syrian refugees living in the country.

As the refugee crisis has unfolded in the Middle East, the Government has been responding, on behalf of the Irish people, through Irish Aid. By the end of the year, we will have provided €62 million for the Syrian crisis alone. We have made specific efforts in support of our European partners, in particular, Greece and the Balkans. We provide core support for the Red Cross and the UN High Commission for Refugees which have been particularly active in meeting the immediate needs of refugees in Europe. Since the start of 2015 Irish Aid has provided €180,000 specifically to support the work of non-governmental organisation, NGO, partners in Macedonia alone. Under Ireland's rapid response initiative, we have also deployed two rapid responders to Serbia and Macedonia and a further two to Greece. A further deployment next week will support the UNHCR's provision of water and sanitation services for refugees there.

Those arriving in Europe start their journey in many places. In the past decade most migrants arrived from sub-Saharan and north Africa. However, the Syrian conflict has dramatically changed the profile of migrant flows and Syrians are now the largest group arriving in Europe, accounting for almost half of those arriving in Greece last year. Last month marked the fifth anniversary of the start of the brutal Syrian conflict which the United Nations estimates has caused up to 400,000 deaths. The continued violence and war crimes which have forced millions of Syrians to flee their homes and country must end and those responsible must be held accountable. To echo the point made by Deputy Brendan Smith, Ireland firmly believes the UN Security Council should refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court. Ireland urges all sides in the Geneva negotiations to support a political resolution of the conflict and the formation of a representative transitional government. While a political solution is desperately needed, sadly, it is not clear that one will be achieved soon. Needs are rising to the point at which the global humanitarian response cannot keep up with them.

Ireland has been providing assistance for Syrians since 2012 and this aid has been scaled up as the impact of the conflict has worsened. More than 4.8 million people have already had to leave Syria. In 2015 Ireland provided more than €13 million in assistance for the country. In February, at the London pledging conference on Syria, I committed Ireland to providing a further €20 million in 2016.

Irish Aid funding is supporting Irish non-governmental organisations, including Concern, GOAL and Trócaire, in their work with refugees in Syria and the surrounding region. The statistics for the numbers affected by the Syria crisis and the amount of funding needed to meet their needs are so staggering that the human stories behind the numbers are often forgotten. Previous speakers articulated details of individual cases. Last October I visited the refugee camp in Azraq, Jordan. In one of the shelters I met a mother who had given birth to her third child at a border post without medical assistance. She and her children subsequently presented to a Red Cross hospital in the UN camp in Azraq. When one considers that the average displacement period of refugee children is 17 years, one wonders what the future holds for her child. How will they grow up? If the family left a neighbourhood in Syria where schools have been bombed before presenting in highly traumatic circumstances to a refugee camp in a place such as Azraq, how will the children fulfil their destiny, if one wills, if they have been traumatised to such an extent that they cannot present to the local school in the refugee camp?

We are leaving a whole generation behind. Irish people are doing what they can in our external response through the aid agencies and multilateral organisations. We are ensuring daily, whether through diplomatic channels or the work we do with individual aid agencies, that we influence the work being done on the ground in order that the people we are trying to help can at least have some semblance of hope for the future. The global humanitarian crisis has resulted in the displacement of at least 56 million people who will need humanitarian assistance. The countries affected include Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and northern Nigeria. These conflicts may not yet have pricked the consciousness of many Irish people, but the world humanitarian summit presents us with an opportunity. I am hopeful the next Taoiseach, whoever he may be, and the President will attend to give voice to Ireland's position on the need for global leadership to prevent and end conflicts of this nature.

The majority of global crises are protracted and last over a decade or more. I hope we can continue as a nation to play our role and hope that in the new politics of this House, we can find mechanisms through the committees to enable us come together and form a common bond regarding how this Parliament, as representative of the people, can best represent how taxpayers invest their hard-earned money in meeting the needs of the people we have been speaking for here today. We have an opportunity to continue in that vein.

I will finish with the words of W.H. Auden. Today is poetry day Ireland and these words are from Auden's poem Refugee Blues:

Once we had a country and we thought it fair,

Look in the atlas and you'll find it there:

We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.

In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,

Every spring it blossoms anew:

Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that.

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