Charles Flanagan (Laois, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I agree that every effort must be made by the international community to confront the brutality and terrorism of Daesh. As the Deputy is aware, the situation in Syria is very complex. I am of the view that the only solution must be political rather than military. I discussed the matter with the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, recently in New York and I hope to have a further opportunity over the next few days to engage further with him.

Refugees have been the subject of debate with my colleague, the Minister for Justice and Equality. We agreed to accept 4,000 asylum seekers from the region. We have now resettled 500 under the Irish refugee protection programme. Our target is 520 by the end of this year. All of these people have come from Lebanon.

On relocation, I acknowledge that progress has been slow, but that has been the case for all of our EU colleagues. To date, a total of 69 Syrians have come to Ireland from Greece and a further 41 are due to arrive next week. It is important that we all work together across the European Union to play our part. Over the past few days, officials and representatives from the Irish Government have travelled to Greece in order to ensure that we play our part in dealing with the tragic situation of unaccompanied minors.

I wish to assure the Deputy that I will continue to take advantage of every opportunity to raise this issue. He is correct; in these matters Ireland exercises a level of influence. I will relay issues that were raised last week during the course of a debate and resolutions of the House in order that we play our part as a small, but nevertheless influential, independent neutral country.

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