andMr. R. Ryan: asked the Minister for Defence if he will report on the integration in the Irish community of the Vietnamese refugees who were received here; the number who have found work here, have left the country and who are still in institutional facilities; and the number of unsettled Vietnamese refugees still in camps in East Asia.
Ceisteanna — Questions Oral Answers - Integration of Vietnamese Refugees.
22.
On arrival in Ireland in 1979 the 212 Vietnamese refugees admitted to this country were housed in two reception centres run by the Irish Red Cross Society in Dublin. Two of the refugees have since died and 16 infants have been born to the families.
As part of a phased integration programme, from an early date formal English classes were provided by the Department of Education and those of working age were assessed by the National Manpower Agency for placement in employment or on training courses with AnCO.
A Resettlement Committee was established by my predecessor and given the task of moving the families out of the reception centres and into the community. Once the committee satisfied itself that the offers of accommodation and support from within the community were adequate the families were settled on an interim basis. All the families have now been moved out of the centres. The accommodation for them was in the main provided by religious communities.
Despite the many social handicaps which the refugees had on leaving the centres they have been very successful in coping with life here. Heads of households have found work; school-going children have been placed in classes with Irish children of their own age and are coping extremely well. The lack of English is still a major problem with women who remain in the home and with adults in the work situation. The Department of Education are at present devising a scheme of instruction which, if necessary, will be on a teacher to individual basis. This will augment local efforts by voluntary teachers or provide formal instruction where none is being given at present.
The objective of the resettlement programme is the full integration of the refugees into Irish society, and much remains to be done before this can be said to have been achieved. A priority is the securing of permanent accommodation for the families, and in this regard I might say that seven of the 40 or so families involved have been provided with permanent local authority housing.
In general, the refugees are coming to terms with our social structures, customs and environment. With few exceptions they have been warmly welcomed in the community and have won the highest regard from their employers. They have freely expressed their happiness about living in Ireland and are most appreciative of the help that has been forthcoming from the Irish people. A number of them have requested that close relatives either in Vietnam or in refugee camps in South East Asia be allowed to come here. The Government have agreed on humanitarian grounds to admit these relatives and appropriate arrangements are being made for their admission here.
Sixty-three adult refugees are currently in full-time employment; two in part-time employment and eight adults are pursuing AnCO training courses.
Apart from four young girls who left Ireland to join their brothers in England shortly after their arrival here, none of the refugees has left the country permanently. Five elderly refugees (2 husbands/wives and one male) are housed in the Irish Red Cross home for elderly refugees at Naomh Aindrias, Temple Road, Dublin 6.
According to statistics supplied by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees through the Department of Foreign Affairs, at 31 December 1980 the number of refugees and displaced persons from Indo-China in countries of first asylum was 168,288. The vast majority of these are of Vietnamese origin.
I would like to avail of this opportunity to thank the many who contributed to the success of the refugee resettlement programme — in particular the religious orders and community groups who provided interim accommodation and the Irish Red Cross Society who managed and staffed the reception centres.
I take it from the Minister's reply that approximately 168,000 Vietnamese are still in countries of first asylum in South-East Asia. I visited one of the camps in Hong Kong. Is the Minister aware of the conditions in which those people were living at that time, which were far from satisfactory? In view of the evident success of the programme of integrating the relatively small number of refugees we have taken here, would he consider taking an additional number of refugees from those who are still in countries of first asylum in South-East Asia?
It is the Minister for Foreign Affairs, not I, who should take up with the Government the question of taking further refugees.
Would the Minister not agree that in the first flood of sympathy a lot of countries were prepared to take those refugees, but now we are left with a hard core of refugees in South-East Asia and it behoves the Government, when perhaps there is not quite the amount of public interest in the matter, to consider doing something about the remaining refugees in South-East Asia. Would he agree to convey to the Minister for Foreign Affairs my concern in relation to this matter?
I will certainly do that.
The remaining questions will appear on next Tuesday's Order Paper.