Bishop hits out at delay in plan to resettle 28 children from Greek refugee camp

The Catholic bishop of Ferns has strongly criticised the latest delay in resettling unaccompanied refugee children from the Moria camp in Greece to Ireland as “appalling”.

On Wednesday, Bishop Denis Brennan, chair of the Irish Bishops’ Council for Immigrants, called on the Government to act as “quickly and decisively as possible” to bring the children it pledged to relocate to “safety and shelter”.

He said he was “deeply saddened” to learn that plans made originally in September 2020 to resettle 28 children had been further delayed after gardaí were unable to travel to Greece because of Covid safety concerns.

Referring to the fire which engulfed the refugee camp on the island of Lesvos on September 8, leaving as many as 13,000 people without shelter, Dr Brennan said the disaster had exacerbated the already cramped, unhygienic, and inhumane conditions in the camp.

The Government pledged to relocate 28 children in Ireland in the wake of the devastation.

Describing that commitment as “the bare minimum support and refuge that we should be offering, particularly to unaccompanied children who have suffered so much trauma in even their earliest years”, the Bishop of Ferns said: “Those forced to migrate have already experienced immense hardship to reach camps like the one in Moria.”

“We know too how vulnerable unaccompanied minors are to the traps of those who deal in despicable acts like human trafficking. On such an issue we cannot act swiftly enough,” he said.

“The fact that seven months on this has not yet happened is appalling," the bishop said.

Calling on the Government to move quickly to bring the children to Ireland, he also asked if it would be possible to accommodate “more than a mere 28 unaccompanied minors”.

“In our own country, where so many have emigrated seeking welcome on other shores, let us be generous in responding when we are asked to do the same for others.”

RTÉ’s This Week programme reported at the weekend that the Government’s plan to relocate the child refugees had been thrown in doubt over concerns that a deployment of garda personnel to Greece to perform security checks on the refugees would be “a breach of Employer Health and Safety Regulations” relating to Covid-19.

A spokesperson for An Garda Síochána told the Irish independent that the force is “committed to continuing our participation in conjunction with our partners in the EU Relocation Programme”.

The current refugee relocation programme is due to conclude by the end of this month and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs told RTÉ that if the deadline for completing the relocation of the 28 children is not met, the children will not be relocated to Ireland.

However, the Department of Justice has since confirmed that Gardaí required to take part in this joint mission to Greece with TUSLA personnel will be vaccinated, which paves the way for the deployment to go ahead before the deadline lapses.

Online Editors