Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

What has been shocking for us on this side of the House tonight is the lack of will evident on the Government side to assist in this issue or take 200 unaccompanied children from France and offer them refuge in our country. That could be done very simply and it would send a very strong message to the rest of the world, particularly Europe, that Ireland is willing to do its part.

I know the individual Ministers on the other side of the House are not without compassion. I know from dealing with the Minister for Justice and Equality on individual cases that she has acted in a very compassionate way in the past. Nevertheless, there is something badly wrong with our system when it only responds in such a negative and mealy-mouthed way in dealing with this refugee crisis across Europe. It is mind-boggling as to why this is the case. It can only be that the officials within the Department of Justice and Equality or the immigration services are saying that we cannot do this because it will open the floodgates and we will not be able to resist if thousands more come. That is not how we should deal with the issue.

The politicians charged with running the country and responding to the citizens should say we will take these 200 children from France. It is as simple as that. They can ring the French Government and say we are willing to help as we have the ability to take 200 children. That is all it takes. That message could be sent or the phone call could be made in the morning. Everybody in the House and the Irish people would support the Ministers in doing that.

There are questions about why this has happened after the response last year to the tragic drownings in the Mediterranean. The Irish people responded in their thousands to that, delivering food, blankets and goods to Greece to assist asylum seekers and refugees. They volunteered through the Red Cross and offered their homes to help people. The Government did nothing. It did not start the ball rolling. We have been told it takes four months to be vetted or approved for accepting a family. We are 12 months down the road from that outpouring of support but nothing has happened in the vetting of people and making them ready to accept the minors who are unaccounted for into this country. We must really get a grip and decide that we want to send out a strong message. We need political will and, unfortunately, it is not there. We must find it.

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