Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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58. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality if Ireland has met its moral obligations to act in the refugee crisis in the Middle East and elsewhere, given that the figures for the number of refugees that Ireland has accepted are below the targets that the Government has set and that her Department has stated that it has not as yet decided on a mechanism to increase the numbers of refugees admitted; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17150/16]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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Ireland has always lived up to its international humanitarian obligations and we remain fully committed to playing our part in addressing the migration crisis in the Middle East and elsewhere. In addition to accepting applications for refugee status from persons who are inside or at the frontiers of the State the Government agreed, in September 2015 to establish the Irish Refugee Protection Programme and to accept up to 4,000 persons overall under the EU Relocation and Resettlement programmes. This is made up of approximately 2,622 persons to be relocated to Ireland from other EU Member States (Italy and Greece) under the two EU Relocation Decisions which Ireland has opted-in to, and 520 programme refugees which Ireland pledged to resettle under the voluntary EU Resettlement Programme. The mechanism by which the balance of 858 persons will be admitted has yet to be decided. These numbers are expected to be further increased by family reunification.

To date a total of 273 programme refugees have been admitted from Lebanon with the balance of 247 expected to arrive by the end of September, also from Lebanon. As such, our commitment under the Resettlement programme will be realised in advance of the EU timeframe for implementation.

The pace of the Relocation programme across the EU has not progressed as fast as Member States has hoped with just 2,195 having been relocated overall across the participating EU Member States. This is largely due to operational issues in the setting up of the 'hotspot' locations in Italy and Greece, including the task of persuading migrants and asylum seekers to cooperate with the registration process - a prerequisite to entering the Relocation process.

The first group of persons relocated to Ireland from Greece, a Syrian family of ten, who arrived in January have been granted refugee status and are receiving our full support to assist them in their integration into Irish society. A further group of 31 Syrians are due to arrive this week and an additional 40 persons are provisionally scheduled to arrive towards the end of July.

A team of officials from my Department, including the Director of the Irish Refugee Protection programme, travelled to Greece last week to meet with the Greek authorities to see what more Ireland could do to help speed up the process. The outcome of that visit has been very positive and Greece has now committed, within the coming months to significantly increasing the numbers available to Ireland. This will greatly facilitate Ireland's efforts to meet our targets set by Government last September, within a reasonable timescale.

Prior to establishing the Irish Refugee Protection Programme, in 2014, Ireland introduced a Syrian Humanitarian Admission Programme (SHAP). The SHAP offered naturalised Irish citizens of Syrian birth and Syrian nationals already legally resident in Ireland an opportunity to make an application for vulnerable close family members to join them in Ireland for up to two years under a sponsorship programme. 119 beneficiaries were granted admission under the programme.