David Norris (Independent)
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I am glad the Minister of State is in the House. I am sure he will be interested in what I have to say on this significant matter.

On 18 November, only a week ago, I attended a meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs Sub-Committee on Human Rights at which a presentation was given by Mr. Polansky, head of mission, Kosovo Roma Refugee Foundation. He told an unimaginable story about the establishment of death camps in Europe. These were established not by the Nazis at the end of the Second World War but by the United Nations allied with a group called Action by Churches Working Together. I do not wish to impugn the Christian religion or even these people who may have been well intentioned in the beginning, but what they did was absolutely incomprehensible. They built what effectively is a death camp on one of the most polluted tailing stands from lead mines that exist throughout Europe — a toxic slag-heap of 100 million tonnes of lead waste.

To date 77 people have died in the camps. More than 50 women have aborted because of the lead poisoning. One mother and her child died in childbirth. Two of her surviving nine children were found to have the highest levels of lead pollution in their blood in medical history. Medical experts from Germany and the United States visited the camps and have said that every single child conceived or born within these camps will have irreversible brain damage. Articles appeared in the international press, in the International Herald Tribune and Bild Zeitung, the German newspaper which took eight children to Germany for medical treatment, and the body scans taken showed that the children had damaged organs and irreversible brain damage.

I will outline what happened. Ironically, on Bloomsday, 16 June 1999, the gypsies living in the Kosovo area, of whom there are approximately 130,000, were attacked by Albanian nationalists and driven out. More than 100,000 fled, 14,000 were left and some of them took refuge in a Serbian school house and were subsequently rehoused by the UN on these tailing ponds. Protests were made at the time but they were told they would be there for only 45 days. They are there nine years later.

The reason given was a legalistic one. The UN had signed contracts with local contractors so it was a case of to hell with the health of these people, they are expendable, they are only gypsies. This was a group who had already been targeted by the Nazis.

The United Nations health office for Mitrovica was asked by the UN administrator, Dr. Bernard Kouchner, who is now the French Foreign Minister, to do a medical survey of Mitrovica because so many UN personnel and French soldiers had been affected by the lead poisoning. He concluded that the entire city of Mitrovica was subject to lead poisoning and all its citizens had some degree of it. They were evacuated, but the gypsies remained. Instead of doing what various reports suggested should be done, namely, that the camps should be closed, they simply opened a jogging track, which they call the "alley of health". This kind of lead poisoning is singly contracted through the lungs, through breathing in, yet they have this alley of health. It is like the safe havens we were told about, a complete abuse of language, as is the alley of health.

With the assistance of the Action by Churches Working Together and the UN, they cut off the food supplies and then cut off the water supply. The people were drinking water from the tailing ponds and scavenging in heavily polluted rubbish tips. How Christian was that and how much was that in the line of the work of the United Nations?

In summer 2004 a special investigation was undertaken after a girl of four years of age died of lead poisoning. Blood samples showed that many of the children had lead levels higher than the World Health Organisation's analyser could register. They were off the scale. Nothing like that had been seen before. If lead levels are above 40 mg/dl of blood, irreversible brain damage occurs — it usually begins at the level of 10 mg/dl of blood — but these people had levels of 120 mg/dl of blood.

The United Nations then decided to study the problem. First, there was the legalistic approach, then the UN was out of its tree as far as medical knowledge is concerned and then it decided to undertake a study. The UN moved the people to a new camp, supposedly lead free, called Osterode. This was even worse. The UN spent €500,000 refurbishing the camp. It cemented over the ground and declared it lead free. The poisoning comes from the air so cementing the ground is no use whatever. Inevitably the people became more infected.

Then the UN tried tinkering with the people's diet. Dietary changes in the case of lead poisoning only affect 20% maximum and only then when they have been removed from the source of the contamination, but the UN did not do that. It carried out another study complete with some medical blood tests and so on, the findings of which it refused to share either with the gypsies or with international organisations. Random blood tests of 105 children in April 2008 showed staggering results. For many of the children living in the alleged lead free camp of Osterode, their lead levels had doubled since moving from the one that was now recognised to be polluted. In other words, the situation had become significantly worse.

A report was then completed by the USAID/Mercy Corp project. It called for the resettlement of 50 of the 120 families in the camps. There was no immediate medical solution and no proper evacuation — evacuation was not mentioned. The author had not even visited the camps. He did not know what he was talking about. Yet having spent €500,000, on the nonsensical refurbishment of an earlier death camp, they now spent €2.4 million on useless interventions.

I mentioned the legalistic futile approach of the authorities there and their seeking studies and reports, the findings of which they ignored. There is a compensation system under the UN rules, but the United Nations lawyers have steadfastly fought against the compensation claims. They have refused to co-operate with lawyers representing the gypsies. They have made no attempt to do so. The UN does not deny responsibility but it simply refuses to comply with its own ethical standards.

In 2005 the Society for Threatened Peoples, the largest NGO in Germany after the Red Cross, brought the leading German expert on toxic poisoning, Dr. Klaus Runow, to the camp. The UN tried to ban him but he managed to get 60 hair samples. They were sent to a well-known laboratory in the city of Chicago. The results showed that most of the children had the highest level of lead pollution in their blood in medical history and all of them had toxic levels of poisoning of 36 other heavy metals as well.

I will end by outlining something that happened in the past few months. Mr. Paul Polansky gave this account:

A few months ago another Gypsy baby died in Osterode. It was one month old and had been born with a large head, swollen belly and miniature legs. It woke at six in the morning, vomiting, and died twenty minutes later in hospital. Lead poisoning is a hideous and painful death for children. Four-year-old Jenita Mehmeti was attending the camp kindergarten when her teacher noticed she was losing her memory and finding it hard to walk. Jenita was sent back to her barracks where for the next three months she vomited several times a day, before becoming paralysed and dying.

When her two year old sister came down with the same symptoms the United Nations doctor for the city of Mitrovica refused to accept her as a patient or treat her because she was living one kilometre outside his jurisdiction. That is an appalling reversal and denial of the hippocratic oath. Luckily an NGO that has a conscience took her to Belgrade and saved her life. The United Nations intervened to save Albanian nationalist forces of the Kosovo Liberation Army and evacuated them to the United States of America, yet it has supervised the imprisonment of these people in unspeakable conditions.

I appeal to the Minister of State to take up this matter in the strongest possible way with the United Nations. It is an organisation for which I have great respect. It has its difficulties. It is the only fallible instrument we have to protect us against the likes of George Bush or Saddam Hussein and we need it, but when it is wrong, it must be slapped down and told that it must not behave in this barbarous fashion.

Peter Power (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Senator Norris for raising this disturbing case on the Adjournment. I share his horror about the horrific effects of lead poisoning, especially on children, which I witnessed.

As the Senator may be aware, the Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian communities in the former Yugoslavia had a total population of approximately 8,000. Following the outbreak of conflict in the early 1990s, the Roma Mahala community was forced to flee from its traditional home of the same name in southern Kosovo. Some went to camps in northern Kosovo, while others were displaced to Serbia, Montenegro and western Europe. Since then, international efforts to return minority groups to their place of origin have continued. In particular, efforts to facilitate the return home of the Roma Mahala intensified after the end of the conflict in Kosovo in 1999.

The Government is acutely aware of the plight of the Roma Mahala and has supported a broad range of projects targeted at helping them. For the period 2005 to 2009, Irish Aid, the section of the Department of Foreign Affairs for which I have responsibility, has allocated €850,000 towards development work with the Roma Mahala and a further €200,000 has been provided for the World Bank's Roma Education Fund, which has benefited the Roma community in 11 countries in central and eastern Europe, including Kosovo.

The Government was one of the first donors to the initial phase of the Return to Roma Mahala project, which successfully resettled 90 Roma families in their places of origin. Between 2005 and 2006, €250,000 was provided to the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, UNMIK, to support the return of displaced refugees to Roma Mahala.

For the period 2008 to 2009, more than €600,000 has been committed to the Danish Refugee Council for a project aimed at strengthening the capacity of the Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian communities to build sustainable livelihoods and to support their economic and social integration into Kosovo society. However, as Senator Norris correctly pointed out, many problems remain.

My colleague, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Martin, and I are deeply concerned about the current position of members of the Roma Mahala community who are living in camps in northern Mitrovica in Kosovo. I am aware of reports that residents of those camps, especially young children who are highly vulnerable to lead intoxication, are exposed to high levels of lead contamination from disused mines in the area. Senator Norris clearly and eloquently pointed that out.

In response to information received on the issue in late July, the Minister asked officials in our embassy in Athens, accredited to Kosovo at that time, to raise our serious concern with UNMIK. They were advised that UNMIK's Office of Communities, Returns and Minorities Affairs is supporting the Kosovar Ministry of Communities and Returns as it assumes responsibility for the management of the camps. The Ministry is working closely with all stakeholders to pursue permanent housing solutions for all Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian internally displaced persons, IDPs, in the region. That includes resettlement of the remaining IDPs who are residing in the areas subject to lead contamination.

At the request of the Minister, Deputy Martin, concerns on the matter were also raised later in the summer with the International Civilian Office, ICO, in Kosovo and with the head of UNMIK, Mr. Lamberto Zannier. The Minister has instructed officials of the Department of Foreign Affairs to continue monitoring developments and to ensure that our EU and international partners remain fully seized of Ireland's concerns. Officials of the Department met recently with Mr. Paul Polansky, an expert on the living conditions of Roma people residing in the camps, for an update on the matter.

At a European Union meeting on the western Balkans held in Brussels on Wednesday, 19 November, the Irish representative raised the issue with the Presidency and the Commission. Furthermore, the Irish delegate to the meeting of the International Steering Group on Kosovo, which took place in Brussels on Friday last, raised the issue of IDPs, with particular reference to the plight of the Roma community residing in northern Mitrovica. The Department is also monitoring progress on this question through liaison with NGOs working in the area.

The process of state building continues in Kosovo and its institutional framework is being established. Our embassy in Budapest, which is now accredited to Kosovo, will continue to monitor the situation through the relevant authorities and international supervisory institutions.

This is a matter of great concern to me and the Minister for Foreign Affairs. We will continue to impress upon all parties concerned the need to work together for an urgent and sustainable solution to this serious problem. I assure Senator Norris every opportunity will be taken to encourage the responsible agencies of the UN and the EU to help find such a solution and take forward the safe and secure resettlement of the Roma people.

David Norris (Independent)
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I thank the Minister of State for his humane reply, which I know comes directly from the heart. The UNMIK people at the UN have obfuscated all the way along the line. We cannot accept what they say and the Minister of State should not take anything they say on trust. We must really put teeth into the monitoring process and push for those unfortunate people to be removed from the source of pollution immediately. The matter is very urgent, as is shown by that ghastly tale of the small girl who died within recent months with miniature legs and in terrible agony. We cannot allow any more of that.