Deirdre Clune (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Thank you. I wish the Minister of State well. I appreciate the importance of the work he is doing.

One point I would like to raise is the European Regional Development Fund and funding for urban renewal projects, which we hear may be excluded this time around. Cities like Cork, Dublin, Waterford and Galway, and probably Limerick as well, would not receive funding under this round, but it is important that they would. They are major cities, with many people living there. We need to work with what we have in renewing our urban facilities. I cannot stress how important that is. The Minister of State is nodding as if he is aware of it, but it is something I wanted to raise directly with him.

There are many other issues I would like to raise with him, but the situation in Ukraine is very sad. I would like him to encourage dialogue at all levels, which I think is very important. It is distressing to see scenes on our televisions of people being kicked and batoned by their own police force. This is a force that is supposed to protect citizens, but unfortunately that is not happening. I have visited Ukraine myself and it is divided between the EU and the west. The young people there want to move towards the EU. The protests there are peaceful at the moment, and I hope it stays like that. It is a very important conflict and I urge the Minister of State to maintain dialogue when and wherever he can on that issue.

I would also like to speak about the situation in Syria and its refugees. Senator Leyden and I are members of the Council of Europe. Last week we had a representation from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees who stated there 2.2 million refugees who have gone to neighbouring countries, and 1.1 million of those are children. There are 4.25 million internally displaced persons. The special rapporteur on human rights has called on the parties involved in the conflict to ensure international organisations and NGOs would be allowed to access and help refugees, especially those who are internally displaced in their country, particularly women and children, who represent the bulk of the affected people. Most of the refugees have gone to Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq. Those countries have taken on an enormous burden, even though they are developing countries themselves. Lebanon does not have the infrastructure to host such a large number of refugees, and this is causing tension in the host countries. I know they are outside the EU, but member states such as Austria, Bulgaria, France, Germany and Luxembourg have accepted some refugees. Have we a strategy on this? We need to keep working on it. The children have no education and are forced to work under conditions that are contrary to the international convention on human rights. There is sexual and gender-based violence, rape, forced marriage and prostitution. There is a real issue here. Is the European Union doing enough to support these people, who may never be repatriated to their own country?