Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

We have Ukrainians here under the temporary protection directive, we have international protection applicants and we have refugees accepted under the Irish refugee protection programme, IRPP. Sometimes these all get jumbled in.

I will speak to the IRPP programme. We have taken, at this stage, 3,900 Syrians under IRPP 1 and 2. There is an ongoing commitment to receive more Syrians in, as refugees. A group of 80 came in in May of this year and more will come in later on this year.

My Department has taken in approximately 600 Afghans under the IRPP. That is separate to the Afghans admissions programme about which the Deputy spoke, which is a scheme run by the Department of Justice. We have also, of course, taken in a number of Ethiopians as a result of the conflict there. These are small numbers in comparison to the scale of these crises but we bring these people in directly. They have full refugee status and all the protections that offers. When one compares what we have done to what other European countries have done, our numbers stand favourably.

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