I am sharing time with Deputy Costello who is taking the last three minutes. I welcome this opportunity. Let me start by recalling that the Middle East peace process is a key priority for Ireland including during our tenure on the Security Council. There have been a number of recent developments on the ground that make this discussion very timely. I wish to underline my serious concern, which I know many Deputies share, regarding the designation by Israel's Ministry of Defence of six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist e…

I thank all of the Deputies for participating in this debate and for the tone of the debate. I also wish to recognise that yesterday was the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. They would have got a very strong signal from Ireland with Irish people's continuing concern for their struggle. I will address a number of the issues that have been raised. I have been very vocal on the issue of the six Palestinian NGOs, at home nationally and at EU level. I have raised the issue very directly with …

As part of its climate and transition agenda, the EU is engaged in improving resilience and energy security across the EU, including in Ireland, through investment in interconnection. Cyprus currently has no interconnection for energy and, as such, it is entirely reliant on precarious domestic supply. Interconnection is, therefore, vital to energy security in Cyprus. There are two European interconnection projects currently involving Cyprus. One is the Euro-Asia interconnector, which will run from Israel through Cy…

I do not accept that. What we are doing here is trying to ensure that a member state, that is, Cyprus, is not isolated in terms of electricity interconnection. This project has been assessed by the Commission. The Commission, as Ireland does, makes a distinction in policy between the EU and Israel between occupied Palestinian territory and Israel proper. This is about an interconnection project that connects an EU member state from an energy security perspective. That makes sense, from an EU collective perspective,…

I make statements all the time on Israel's responsibility in occupied Palestinian territory. I have been fairly consistent on that, both at home and internationally. This project has been assessed by the European Commission. It is about interconnection of an EU member state with Greece, and Israel. I am aware that the Palestinian Authority has laid legal claim to natural resources off the coast of Gaza. That is true and that is something that will need to be resolved over time. However, this is an issue around inte…

Ireland condemns the regime of Alexander Lukashenko for its exploitation of migrants for political purposes. At the Foreign Affairs Council on Monday, EU foreign ministers discussed the escalation in the crisis along the EU's borders with Belarus. We agreed to broaden the listings criteria for sanctions on the Belarusian regime. This broader listing will target individuals and entities organising or contributing to activities by the Lukashenko regime that facilitate illegal crossing of the EU's external borders. Ir…

We should not describe what is happening now as a situation where migrants are being pushed between Belarus and European borders. The EU is not pushing anybody nor are member states. They are trying to protect their borders from uncontrolled migration. There were 18,000 migrants on the border with Poland at the start of the week. It looks as though some may have been shipped elsewhere now. We do not know where. Human rights organisations are not being allowed to access migrants on the Belarusian side of the border.…

The European Union is not saying that.

No, the Deputy said that they were being treated like a football, kicked back and forth.

It is very difficult to get a handle on the numbers as they change all the time. The Belarusian side is effectively trying to weaponise incredibly vulnerable people, promising them entry to the EU, bringing them from countries such as Syria and Iraq and bussing them to the border. Then those unfortunate migrants find that they are trapped. That is what is happening. We need to first, try to stop it, otherwise we will have 18,000 more next week. Let us imagine if we had 18,000 people waiting to come into Ireland wit…

The EU's responsibility is to try to balance the solidarity that we have with member states that are under huge pressure with its international obligations to the welfare of migrants. What that means is trying to get access for international organisations, which can assist and support migrants. That is why we have supported the Lithuanian Red Cross financially to try to provide welfare supports to migrants in vulnerable situations and will continue to do that. However, as long as people are being cynically bussed a…

I thank the Deputy for giving me an opportunity to outline that foreign birth registration is open again. It has always been open for emergency cases but it has reopened again for mainstream applications. I am pleased to inform him that as of Monday, 15 November, the processing of foreign birth registration, FBR, applications has resumed and will be gradually scaled up in line with the recruitment of additional resources. Foreign birth registration applications are citizenship applications and, as in all jurisdicti…

I apologise to the Deputy, but I do not think I have given the two-year figure. It is new to me. Foreign birth registration applications are citizenship applications and, as in all jurisdictions, involve a complex and lengthy process. The passport service has a statutory responsibility to protect the integrity of this special citizenship process. Accordingly, it must assure very careful analysis takes place across its system to verify both the identity of the applicant and his or her entitlement to be an Irish citi…

Last Monday.

To clarify, the essential service was never stopped. Foreign birth registration for essential cases was always maintained. Of course there is frustration for the 32,000 cases on hand and parents, primarily, will want Irish passports for their children who are entitled to them. However, we had to make a judgment to prioritise how we used staff for essential services during the pandemic and we did that. We now have a more normal system back up and running since Monday. We are going to need more human resources to get…

I thank the Deputy. I am very glad to have an opportunity to clarify this because this question has not been asked for a while. I affirm the Government's commitment to meeting the target of 0.7% of GNI to be allocated to overseas development aid, ODA, by 2030. In budget 2022, €1.044 billion was allocated to ODA. This is the highest-ever amount allocated by any Government. I expect that this figure will correspond to 0.32% of GNI for 2022 given the strong economic recovery we are experiencing. The need to continue t…

That is not an unreasonable ask. What we are doing is not tokenistic. An additional €174 million, which is a 20% increase in ODA in one year, is a pretty significant allocation. The nature of that allocation has changed somewhat. Other Departments are taking up a higher percentage, for example, than they would have in the past. The Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman, anticipates spending close to €120 million more on asylum and refugee costs in Ireland. That is part …

I understand that request. I will tell the Deputy of my experience. After we made the commitment, I was the Minister who repeated it because it had notionally been a Government objective for many years. I recall when the then Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Liz O'Donnell, also made that commitment and fought at budget time to make sure there was progress towards it and so on. We would not have had €174 million extra in the budget just passed were it not for our commitment to 0.7% by 2030. I …

I am gravely concerned by the worsening situation in Tigray and other parts of Ethiopia, including the recent escalation in military operations and declarations of a state of emergency, which are magnifying the ongoing humanitarian crisis. These developments are deeply worrying for the people of Ethiopia and raise questions regarding the stability of the Horn of Africa region as a whole. Through our bilateral engagements, as well as in the EU and at the UN Security Council, Ireland continues to advocate for urgent …

I have said that I support the US decision to impose target sanctions on individuals. I raised this issue at the Foreign Affairs Council meeting when we discussed Ethiopia on Monday. The EU does not have a collective position on that yet, but is examining its options. The EU has significant influence in Ethiopia. It spends an enormous amount there, with the Ethiopian Government, and is looking at using its influence in every way it can to, first, bring about a ceasefire, a political negotiation and, perhaps most im…