Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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95. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the steps her Department is taking to ensure that Ireland has a humanitarian admission programme for families fleeing conflict; her plans to allow persons to co-sponsor family reunification applications; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [21505/17]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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Before the migration crisis escalated, my predecessor introduced a Syrian Humanitarian Admissions Programme (SHAP), which was subject to certain conditions, including economic dependency being met by the sponsor. This was superseded by the Irish Refugee Protection Programme (IRPP), which allows for Syrians and other eligible nationalities to benefit from resettlement and relocation schemes, and offers them protection status in Ireland in their own right including all the rights and privileges that that entails. This is a much improved programme allowing thousands to benefit from protection here. I gave an undertaking that Ireland would accept 520 persons for resettlement over an 18-month period to the end of 2017. This was almost double the figure proposed for Ireland by the European Commission and was delivered a year ahead of the Commission deadline. As a result, I announced that Ireland would extend the resettlement programme to take in a further 520 refugees from Lebanon in 2017, most of whom are of Syrian origin. To date, 627 programme refugees have arrived under the resettlement aspect of the programme and 1,040 will arrive in total. In relation to the relocation scheme, a monthly schedule has been agreed with the Greek authorities which will sustain the pace of intakes throughout 2017 at the levels required to allow Ireland to meet its commitments to Greece within the time frame envisaged by the Programme. Ireland will have accepted approximately 1,100 asylum seekers from Greece by September.

My current emphasis is to increase the number of people arriving in Ireland under the programmes currently in place. I am satisfied that we are making considerable progress now and that there is still capacity to ensure more vulnerable people can come to Ireland under our resettlement and relocation programmes. All of our focus needs to be on meeting these targets. In addition, existing avenues remain open as pathways for family reunification.

Significant resources are currently being invested in these humanitarian efforts through the Irish Refugee Protection Programme, the Office for the Promotion of Migrant Integration and the International Protection Office. As a result, we have established functioning mechanisms and associated expertise to deal with resettlement and relocation. Our response to the migrant crisis, in terms of accepting refugees, is through the IRPP and all available resources are being directed to that Programme in order to meet the commitments entered into.