asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if, in view of the fact that the UN refugee camps in Chile are due to be closed at the end of the year, the Government will agree to accept refugees as was done in the case of Hungarian refugees.
Ceisteanna—Questions. - Chilean Refugees.
64.
We have received requests for the permanent resettlement in Ireland of refugees from Chile.
The Government have the utmost sympathy with the refugees in the situation in which they find themselves. The requests for resettlement are being examined and will receive every consideration. The Deputy will appreciate, however, that there are a number of factors relating to our circumstances which must be taken into account in this examination.
The purpose of the question is entirely humanitarian, and the Government did respond when a similar problem arose in Hungary. Is the Minister aware, that, while the official death toll of the coup was 590, information from Santiago alone indicated that 2,796 bodies were recovered 14 days after the coup and that perhaps 20,000 people have been executed? In view of the fact that these United Nations refugee camps are closing down, are these people to be left to the mercy of the military authorities there? I think we are all unhappy to see the overthrow of a democracy even if it is a left-wing one.
The Deputy may be assured that the Government will be very sympathetically disposed to any application they may receive from refugees from Chile for entry to Ireland. I should like to emphasise that the two requests that have been made have been made by Irish citizens who have suggested that the Government might receive refugees from Chile. In fact, no application has been received to date from anybody in Chile for entry to Ireland. As will be appreciated, the refugees who have applied to get out of Chile have named a number of countries; amongst these Ireland has not so far been named, as far as we are aware. We are in touch with the UN High Commission for Refugees, and if and when we receive any application from any of the people concerned in Chile the matter will be sympathetically dealt with.
Then if the gentleman concerned would submit names and addresses to the Minister for Foreign Affairs of possible people to settle here, this will be given sympathetic consideration by the Government.
Yes. As soon as we have hard information that some particular person wants to come—and there are these agencies for feeding this information—the matter will be looked at. The Deputy will appreciate that there are many matters which concern a refugee, and they include employment prospects and so forth. There are a number of central European countries which have employment opportunities and which have been named by the refugees as places to which they wish to go. Of course, we have seen in the last few weeks that with the oil situation even central Europe is trying to discourage people from coming in. However, the Deputy may be assured that if requests accompanied by hard information are received they will be dealt with sympathetically.