Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)

One of the things that was often lost in the public mindset around this discussion is that level of compassion - perhaps eclipsed understandably by the sheer scale of compassion needed after the Russian invasion of Ukraine that led to over 110,000 people coming to this country. However, before that, after the fall of Kabul and the return of the Taliban, that level of community-level, driven compassion was there. I know the cases in Kildare referenced by the Deputy. I think of my own sister and my parliamentary assistant, ironically both called Emma, who were very involved in the campaign to bring the Afghani women's hockey team here. We were able to get the entire team out of Afghanistan. Women playing sport is a crime under the Taliban. That is just a particular reference. Obviously, Ireland has a new embassy in Pakistan and we continue to use our resident ambassador to make sure we advocate for peace in that region and ensure Ireland's voice at a community level is heard on an international level too.

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