Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House. He is the right man in the right place at the right time. I spoke to the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade on this issue recently and he told me I certainly would get a decent response. This request is somewhat unusual and is to ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade whether the Government would facilitate short-term fostering of Syrian refugee children by Irish host families until the position in their homeland improves. Obviously, such an arrangement only would be considered where there is the consent of Syrian families and parents. I raise this issue because a number of families have approached me in this regard. They noted this crisis has gone on for too long, that more than 1 million children are refugees in or from Syria and that they are in dire straits. I thought this proposal from the aforementioned families was interesting and is akin to extending a humanitarian hand of friendship and stating that perhaps we could help. I spoke to the non-governmental organisations, NGOs, last week at a meeting of the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade and before going through the facts and outlining my proposal, I am deeply conscious the aim always and ever should be to keep families together.

However, this proposal is only applicable to extreme circumstances, which I believe are now arising. Syrian refugees in Lebanon are becoming increasingly reliant on child labour to earn money for families which are now desperate to maintain basic necessities. For example, children are working as street vendors by selling food, toys or flowers and have become a common sight in Beirut. More than 2.1 million people are displaced at present, 1 million of whom are children. It is expected that more than 3 million Syrians will have left their country by the end of 2013 and women and children make up three quarters of the refugee population.

The vast majority of refugees are dependent on aid and arrive with little more than the clothes on their backs. Nearly all of them will have experienced trauma in the form of death in the family, physical violence, kidnapping and home destruction. I am concerned about the effect that has on children. As I have said, we now have children in child labour and as child soldiers. They have been inducted as child soldiers by some of the fundamentalist groups.

UNICEF has already termed the children as the "lost generation" who are displaced and living in makeshift shelters. They have little or no education and have little access to education. For example, the number of Syrian refugee children in Lebanese schools has risen from 1,500 to 30,000 in the space of one year, that is from 2011 to the beginning of 2012. Three out of four children who are school age do not attend because they lack books or clothes, are afraid of being harassed by other children on the way to and from classes or because they do not see the point, as said in the UN report.

I could go on but instead shall give some background information. Ireland has a history of sheltering refugees. During the Second World War, 21 refugee children were brought to Ireland in 1946 from Germany, France and Austria as part of a Red Cross initiative known as Operation Shamrock. Last Saturday they were reunited at Glencree Centre as part of The Gathering 2013 and their reported effects of shelter were very good. One of the 21 refugee children attending the event said, "We were raised like we were their own, I have very happy memories of Ireland". This country has an excellent reputation in this regard. However, I do not liken short-term fostering, that might last anywhere between three months to a year or however long a crisis lasts, to adoption.

I shall outline my proposal in a nutshell. An agency like UNICEF or Médecins sans Frontières which works in an area could identify families who would like help and want to have their children fostered. Then the Defence Forces could deal with the logistics and transport the children to Ireland while the Department of Justice and Equality organises temporary visas. Of course such an initiative would draw on public services in both health and education. We could cap the number involved to say, for example, 500 children which is only a drop in the ocean when one considers the number of refugees in the world. Most of all, Ireland could play a leading role in promoting the measure as an EU initiative while at the same time send a message to the Syrian regime to sort out its conflict, which is key.

I am studying human rights law at the National University of Ireland, Galway, and the Syrian crisis has been examined as part of the course. There is a view that every crisis lasts a certain length of time but in the meantime Syrian children must face cold and very wet winters. The children who live in the mountains will experience extreme cold, many of whom will not survive the winter, never mind their lost years of education, etc. Clearly there is a need for services here to be utilised. Some of the children will suffer difficulties such as sleep disturbance, speech problems and behavioural issues so there will be a draw on the HSE and school places. Do we say "No" because everything is a bit of a draw? It is worth examining the matter. The UN must change the way that it works because of the situation in the world today. My proposal is a humanitarian solution and will provide humanitarian assistance. I look forward to hearing what the Minister of State has to say about the matter.

As a matter of interest the UN has called the crisis in Syria the single most complex situation that it has ever come across and humanitarian corridors are not able to operate as they were designed to. There is no doubt that things are in a bad shape in Syria and my proposal is an interesting one to come from Irish families.