Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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77. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the number of the unaccompanied child refugees who had been previously living in the French Calais camp who have arrived here to date in view of the motion passed by Dáil Éireann on 10 November 2016 to relocate 200 unaccompanied child refugees; and when the target of relocating 200 unaccompanied child refugees from the Calais camp will be met. [7838/17]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The Government has been proactively engaged with the French authorities in identifying young people previously living in the camp in Calais who may wish to come to Ireland. Following the approval by Government of the appropriate legal mechanism and the identification of considerable resources needed, officials from the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, Tusla, the Child and Family Agency and my Department positively engaged with the French authorities in Paris in early January with a view to identifying these unaccompanied minors. There has also been ongoing contact with the NGO sector.

Subsequent to the officials meeting, the first mission to meet unaccompanied minors took place last month and included representatives of Tusla, which has statutory responsibility for the care and accommodation of unaccompanied minors in the State. The Tusla officials were accompanied by a member of staff from the Irish Refugee Protection Programme Office of my Department and members of An Garda Síochána who carried out security assessments. Tusla has indicated that the final logistical stages of the relocation process for the first group of young people is in hand. A second mission took place early this month and I understand that three further missions are scheduled over the next few weeks. Although decisions regarding numbers and dates for future missions are matters for Tusla to determine in cooperation with the French authorities, I understand that initially approximately 40 young people could be identified by both the authorities and the NGO's and processed over the course of the coming months and we have committed to accept all of these on a phased basis and subject to the aforementioned security process. The best interests of the child is central to this partnership process with the French authorities.