Ministers agreed to pay €1.5 million to a refugee resettlement programme, instead of keeping an earlier promise to take in 350 additional applicants for international protection, reports Breaking News.
Two years ago, Ireland agreed to accept 350 applicants as part of a Europe-wide initiative to free Mediterranean countries from the influx of refugees from Africa.
The government has now decided to make a financial contribution of €1.5 million to the Voluntary Solidarity Mechanism instead of accepting refugees.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the move reflected how circumstances “changed fundamentally” in two years as Ireland is now under a lot of pressure and has taken in around 100,000 refugees from Ukraine and elsewhere in the last year.
“About two years ago, we decided as a Government that we would help the countries in the Mediterranean. At the time, they were experiencing a migration crisis, huge numbers of people coming from Africa to the Mediterranean. We decided that we would take 350 asylum seekers from those Mediterranean countries at the Council of Europe. Things have changed fundamentally since then. We’re now one of the countries under pressure because we have taken in nearly 100,000 people, mainly from Ukraine but also from other parts of the world,” the Taoiseach told reporters outside Government Buildings in Dublin, reports Breaking News.
Mr Varadkar insisted that Ireland should not limit the number of applicants for international protection in Ireland.
“That’s not realistic, it’s not legal, it’s not practical. But we can manage the flows better and that’s one thing that we’re trying to do,” he said, reports Breaking News.
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