Eugene Murphy (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Is tamall beag é, ach mar sin féin, I will say my cúpla focal.

I thank Deputy McGrath for sharing his time with me but I certainly do not agree with him. These people, these children, are in a desperate situation. I sum it up by looking at the two children in our family, one aged 18 and a half, the other 13 and a half, and every time I hear or watch what is going on in Calais, whether it is Aleppo or Mosul, I look into the faces of our two children and say that those children could be ours. These people are not all terrorists. I know there are complexities involved but they are innocent people. The House should remember that there were many good, steady Syrian families - great families. They have been destroyed by this terrible war.

It is up to us to take in those 200 children. I believe - I stood outside with the people in the Gallery tonight at one of the sincerest protests I ever attended - that the Irish people, as Deputy Darragh O'Brien, our foreign affairs spokesman, has said, are way ahead of the Government on this. I do not believe that the Ministers, Deputies Flanagan, Zappone or Stanton, or the Tánaiste are without compassion. We all deal with them. We know they are compassionate people. However, their case on this is weak. There is something terribly wrong in the way it is being handled, and I firmly believe that the Irish people would take thousands of these children in without delay. I know in my constituency of Galway-Roscommon, 50 families who would love to take them in. People approach me and ask how they can help and what they can do. Let us all do everything we can in this Chamber to alleviate the suffering of this small group of children, and let us be proud of it.

I will finish on this. The House should remember, as Deputy Casey reminded us, that we took in German children after the Second World War and took in families from the Congo in the past. We can do it so let us do it again.

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