Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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96. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the extent to which he, through the EU and UN, continues to engage with NGOs and others involved in seeking an improvement in how refugees are treated internationally; the efforts being made to ensure a reasonable standard of emergency accommodation is available and that renewed efforts are made to address the causes of such mass migration, whether they be war or economic factors; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28443/20]

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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This question, like Deputy Brady's question earlier, seeks to focus attention on the deplorable conditions under which refugees and asylum seekers are held in the European Union and on the edges and borders of the European Union to try to get the international community focused in a meaningful way on doing something about it.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy. Ireland is a long-standing advocate for refugees. For example, in 2016, Ireland co-facilitated the UN summit on refugees and migrants. This summit agreed the New York Declaration, which led to the global compact for refugees and the global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration.

The Irish Aid programme, Ireland's official development assistance programme, disburses more than €180 million each year in humanitarian assistance. In 2020, Ireland is providing more than €18.5 million in funding to the UN's refugee agency, UNHCR, the highest level in more than a decade. Our contribution includes core funding of €9 million, €3 million to the UNHCR's Covid-19 appeal, and crisis-specific responses, including Jordan, Venezuela and the Rohingya crisis. My Department engages on an ongoing basis with the UNHCR.

Yesterday, I addressed the UNHCR executive committee, underlining that Ireland remains a strong supporter of the UNHCR and the life-saving work it does for displaced persons throughout the world. I acknowledged that several UNHCR staff members lost their lives to Covid-19 in the course of their work, showing extraordinary courage in protecting some of the world's most vulnerable people.

The conflict in Syria has resulted in a major migration crisis, with many grave and widespread consequences. The Government's response to the Syrian crisis, through Irish Aid, is the largest Irish response ever to a humanitarian crisis. This year, Ireland will disburse another €25 million in assistance, which includes support to refugees in neighbouring countries, particularly Jordan. Ireland is also party to the EU response to the Syria migration crisis and the related loss of lives, including the facility for refugees in Turkey, contributing more than €38 million.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, ICRC, is also one of Ireland’s major humanitarian partners and Ireland has provided the ICRC with €14.5 million in funding this year, including €10 million in core funding, to assist in its protection work. Irish Aid provides predictable and co-ordinated funding to six key NGO partners through our humanitarian programme plan, which is designed for humanitarian interventions in situations of protracted and recurring crises.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister for the reply and I agree that Ireland makes a solid contribution to alleviating the harsh conditions of refugees through bilateral and multilateral aid. The issue to which the Minister referred is that the European Union on the one side and the UN on the other side seem to be ineffective in dealing with the magnitude of the problem that arises from Syria. I readily agree but nonetheless it is a problem. Also within the eastern countries in Europe itself, an antipathy has built up towards refugees and that is sad coming from people many of whom themselves were refugees in the last century, something which everybody should remember. History has an unfortunate habit of repeating itself. Can anything further be done to focus attention on the UN and EU in bringing about a convergence of views on it?

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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When we achieved what I considered to be a huge achievement in getting a global compact for refugees, which effectively was to try to get a global agreement on how countries should respond to refugees, there was a lot of disagreement on it in the UN. Unfortunately, some very vocal EU member states did not support it. Of course, within the European Union itself, where we should be giving leadership by example to the rest of the world, we have had huge difficulty in agreeing a collective approach towards virtually anything to do with migration, quite frankly. In recent weeks, the European Commission has introduced a new proposed pact on migration and asylum, for which it hopes to be able to gain support throughout the European Union. Certainly Ireland will play a very constructive role in helping it to do this so we can ensure there is genuine burden sharing throughout the EU in terms of countries making a contribution, as I believe we should, to the migration challenges. There are numerous ways in which we can do this. No country should be able to opt out.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister for the content of his reply. I readily acknowledge and commend the Minister on his contribution to dealing with this particular issue in the UN and the EU. I hope that perhaps as time goes on reason will prevail. I am not 100% certain about this because man's inhumanity to man has recurred many times in the past and will continue in the future. Some of the scenes we have witnessed on television over the past five to ten years have been appalling and a sad reflection on the civilised society in which we claim to live at present. I commend the Minister on the work he has done so far and I hope he will continue that work vigorously to bring about the type of focus we are speaking about.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy. I think I am right in saying that approximately 17 million people now live in refugee camps throughout the world. It is a higher figure than ever before. When we think about the scale of this and the commonality in terms of causes of conflict, tension and people being driven from their homes we begin to realise that most of the problems that drive mass migration are man made or linked to the actions of men or states.

There is a significant amount of work for the UN to do. I am really looking forward to Ireland actually taking responsibility on the UN Security Council from 1 January next year. We will certainly be focusing our efforts on peacekeeping but also on conflict prevention, as well as holding countries and state actors to account for the kind of actions that often lead to driving large numbers of people out of their homes and often out of their countries.