Mick Wallace breaks down in Dáil over refugee visit

Independent TD Mick Wallace broke down in the Dáil while talking about a recent meeting with refugees in Calais and Dunkirk in France.

Mr Wallace, who was accompanied on the trip by fellow Independent TD Clare Daly, described an encounter with a 15-year-old refugee.

"[The teenager] lost all of his family, his brothers, sisters, mother and father, on the Iran-Afghan border,'' he said. "He is 15 . . . he would like to come to Ireland or Britain.''

Mr Wallace said Ms Daly and himself had often argued in the Dáil that the State had the potential to play a positive role in world events as a neutral country.

However, he said the State had been silent on and complicit in the role played by the US, France and Britain in the militarisation of the planet.

Mr Wallace said a Government representative should go to Calais and Dunkirk to see what was happening.

He said he had been told about a man who had to leave Afghanistan because one of his family members had worked with the US army and was being sought by the Taliban.

The man had spent six months in Calais but could not take it anymore mentally, the TD said.

“He turned himself in to the French authorities and they sent him back to Afghanistan,’’ said Mr Wallace. “He was dead within two weeks.’’

Mr Wallace made his remarks during a debate on the EU migration and refugee crisis.

Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald said the State was not putting up barriers to refugees.

She said the reason for the "slow start'' to the EU resettlement programme was refugees were not registering in either Italy or Greece, making it difficult to move on with the project.

“This country and certainly my department are prepared and ready to respond to the needs of the arrivals,’’ said Ms Fitzgerald.

“It is a question of having the most effective scale and pace,’’ she said.

Refugee protection programme

Ms Fitzgerald said the Government had established the Irish refugee protection programme, under which it had agreed to accept up to 4,000 persons overall under the EU relocation and resettlement programmes.

She said this was in addition to the applications for protection made within the State, with the number of applications rising from 1,000 in 2013 to more than three times that figure last year.

The State also received ongoing applications from those who came to the country to claim asylum.

Ms Fitzgerald said the Government had committed to relocating more than 2,600 people by the end of next year.

She said the first Syrian family had arrived and been given refugee status and was receiving full support.

An additional 31 people had completed all checks, including security checks, and were expected to be relocated from Greece in the coming weeks.

Fianna Fáil justice spokesman Niall Collins said his party supported a significant expansion of aid to refugees in camps in the Middle East, including the release of further EU funding for this purpose.