Immigration Policy
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-27
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Barry Ward (FG), Dún Laoghaire

I appreciate that and I understand where the Minister of State is coming from. I do not know if it is possible to say what the cost per member of that programme is, or if it has been broken down. In the context of their families, is there room to identify a person who has come here? In the case of Afghanistan, it tends to be women; often very highly qualified women such as journalists, judges and lawyers who come here and whose families remain targets in Afghanistan.
I appreciate what the Minister of State said about resources. Of course we have to keep an eye on that but in the circumstances of these people, can we identify what the per-person cost is and whether that cost is lesser for the members of their family who might want to come here? I have been in touch with lots of people in my constituency who have sheltered people and have agreed to house them when they are here. If there can be an alleviation to the cost to the taxpayer through people like that, is the Department open to this as something that could allow us to bring more people in under the programme?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-27/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:01+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-27