Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

AP/Press Association Images

Ireland has given over €20 million in aid to Syria - our largest humanitarian donation to date

The funding aims to help those “in besieged and hard-to-reach areas, and those who have fled to neighbouring countries”.

TO DATE, IRELAND has provided €20,264,459 in humanitarian assistance in response to the Syrian conflict.

More than €14 million has been provided through the Irish Aid programme, with the remaining €6 million funded from the Department of Agriculture to the World Food Programme’s (WFP) response to the Syria crisis.

This is currently Ireland’s largest response to any humanitarian crisis, and our largest to a single crisis in recent years. Total humanitarian assistance to Syria and the countries surrounding the region since 2012 has now reached more than €62 million.

The funding, according to the department, seeks to meet the needs of those most in need inside Syria, particularly in besieged and hard-to-reach areas, and those who have fled to neighbouring countries.

The Week In Mideast Photos Bilal Hussein Bilal Hussein

Here’s a total breakdown of the figures:

  • United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) - €1,000,000
  • United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) - €1,000,000
  • United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) - €1,000,000
  • International Committee of the Red Cross - €2,500,000
  • International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (Syrian Arab Red Crescent) - €1,000,000
  • NGO Partners (Christian Aid Ireland, Concern, Oxfam Ireland, Plan Ireland, Trócaire, World Vision Ireland) - €2,764,459
  • World Food Programme (Funding from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine) - €6,000,000
  • EU-Turkey Refugee Facility - €5,000,000
  • Total - €20,264,459

13 of Ireland’s Rapid Response Corps have also been deployed to assist the work of UN agencies responding to the Syria crisis throughout the Middle East and Balkans.

This group includes child protection officers, engineers and environmental officers, and information management officers.

Hundreds of thousands of Syrian people have been killed in the five-year civil war between government soldiers (supported by Russian military), and rebels who wish to overthrow the Bashar al-Assad regime, with millions more displaced.

Read: Ibrahim Halawa is not one of 82 young people freed from Egyptian jail today

Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone...
A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation.

Close
33 Comments
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Jimmy Rustle
    Favourite Jimmy Rustle
    Report
    Nov 23rd 2016, 6:17 AM

    I’m all for helping the world but why doesn’t Saudi Arabia pay for it? They caused this mess and they’re not even being held accountable for their crimes.

    296
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute deisecelt
    Favourite deisecelt
    Report
    Nov 23rd 2016, 6:48 AM

    and if they don’t?

    21
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Marlowemallow
    Favourite Marlowemallow
    Report
    Nov 23rd 2016, 7:59 AM

    @deisecelt: There should be a boycott and divestment campaign against Saudi and every other rich Gulf state that funds violent jihadists. The real reason there isn’t is because we all rely on their oil. And it’s that oil money that we all pay at the petrol pump and for cheap flights and clothes from Bangladesh, that ultimately pays for Saudi, Qatar etc. to do what they do.

    135
    See 9 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Billy Mooney
    Favourite Billy Mooney
    Report
    Nov 23rd 2016, 8:20 AM

    €20 million is the least the Irish government could give to alleviate the appalling suffering of the Syrians. The sum is dwarfed by the the €13 billion gift to Apple after all.

    The Syrian people are just a pawn in the power struggle between the global and regional forces including the despotic Saudi regime. And this conflict is reaching new depths of depravity with murderous assaults on schools and hospitals now the norm with children and patients butchered as policy.

    As ever, when the elites go to war it’s ordinary people who are killed and maimed. Imperial and capitalist wars are never in the interests of the working class as it’s always us who bears the burden of the killing and the dying to advance the cause of those ruling elites. Our real enemies sing the same national anthems as our soldiers.

    This is the reality of a world which is run with the purpose of accumulating ever more wealth and power for the ruling classes. The choice facing us is continuing barbarism or socialism.

    32
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Andy K
    Favourite Andy K
    Report
    Nov 23rd 2016, 8:37 AM

    @Jimmy Rustle: Just Saudi Arabia? Dont forget the US, Russia, Turkey, France and Britain. Nations which have been bombing the country for over a year are the main root of the immigration crisis. It may be to fight ISIS (or so they say), but fact is there are at least 4 factions fighting in syria all backed by different countries.

    69
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Marlowemallow
    Favourite Marlowemallow
    Report
    Nov 23rd 2016, 8:38 AM

    @Billy Mooney: You know what’s barbaric Wally? This:

    “We believe that Europe should open its borders”

    and this:

    “we reject the idea that there is a particular link between Islam and terrorism.”

    There is no particular link between the left and reality.

    You materialists still don’t grasp that many, if not most, ordinary people don’t consider remaining alive and having a decent standard of living to be the highest goal of life.

    And the Syrian people are not a homogeneous mass of passive Victims for you to play politics with. They have agency of their own. And some of them are most certainly not merely pawns in a greater power struggle. They have ideas and agendas of their own that they’re willing to kill and be killed for.

    88
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Marlowemallow
    Favourite Marlowemallow
    Report
    Nov 23rd 2016, 9:14 AM

    @Andy K: That’s true. But the Gulf states are the only ones who manage to stick their very rich noses into other countries’ business without suffering much in the way of consequences. They receive no refugees and they provide little or no charity to them – except for the ‘charities’ that come with ideological strings attached of course and are little more than money laundering operations for terrorism.

    47
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Billy Mooney
    Favourite Billy Mooney
    Report
    Nov 23rd 2016, 10:13 AM

    @Marlowemallow:

    What’s depressing is the depth of your delusion. Most of the terrorism inflicted on the world is perpetrated by nominally Christian states such as the U.S, U.K etc. Yet the Left understands that there is no particular link between Christianity and terrorism.

    The root cause of this terrorism is the dominant socioeconomic model. The Left understands that the mass movements of people are a symptom of the problem, not the cause. The refugee and migrant crisis is the result of the capitalist system with exploits the majority to enrich the few. At its most extreme it initiates war and conquest to allow further profiteering in the recent cases of Iraq and Libya for example.

    People are basically the same irrespective of where they come from or what religion or none we profess. We all want to provide a decent and safe home for our families, food on the table, healthcare and education for our children and to have a decent job. If people can obtain these basics then the vast majority are satisfied and will never leave their home place. It is the brute exploitation of the capitalist system and the violence and misery that it drives which sends people searching desperately across the globe for safety and a better life.

    Solidarity with the Syrian people suffering under this barbarism.

    11
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute TheJeff
    Favourite TheJeff
    Report
    Nov 23rd 2016, 11:28 AM

    @Billy Mooney:

    “Solidarity with the Syrian people suffering under this barbarism”

    Under ISIS or Assad.. ?

    12
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Billy Mooney
    Favourite Billy Mooney
    Report
    Nov 23rd 2016, 11:48 AM

    Jeff, There’s no good guys among the power elites. Solidarity with all of the Syrian people suffering and dying as those elites grapple for more power.

    7
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute frash
    Favourite frash
    Report
    Nov 23rd 2016, 12:31 PM

    Journal it is so dishonest of you to keep putting up these photos of children with every migrant article. We all know the truth is 90 % of migrans into Europe are young men. Why do you do this. Why can’t print an actual photo of a migrant boat ?

    42
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute frash
    Favourite frash
    Report
    Nov 23rd 2016, 12:53 PM

    Billy I wonder if the all of the working class who actually gave you votes last time realise that the AAA and PBP and indeed actually all government parties are actually conspiring against the same people when they push the Globalist agenda of mass migration into Europe. This Globalist New World Order, Coudenhove Kalergi wet dream espoused by such esteemed personages as Angela Merkel, Peter Sutherland, George Soros to name a few; this plan which will erode the very basic standard of the working class you claim to represent through more competition for housing, jobs, school places, hospital beds and many other social proplems. The people you claim to speak for will be the very first to suffer from open door mass migration but sadly they will probably be the last to know.

    25
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Francid Dooley
    Favourite Francid Dooley
    Report
    Nov 23rd 2016, 7:11 AM

    That’s nice. Could we now have some humanitarian assistance for our own folk laying on trolleys

    180
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Coles
    Favourite Coles
    Report
    Nov 23rd 2016, 7:41 AM

    Aid for Syria €20 Million.
    Our Health budget is almost 1000 times greater at €15’000 Million.

    If the trolley crisis could be solved by increasing the Health Budget by 0.1% then that would have been done by now.

    36
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Sean @114
    Favourite Sean @114
    Report
    Nov 23rd 2016, 8:59 AM

    €20m would sure go a long way towards helping the 6,525 who are sleeping on our streets at the moment though.

    88
    See 2 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Kevin Slater
    Favourite Kevin Slater
    Report
    Nov 23rd 2016, 10:11 AM

    And the ones with no homes living in hostels and hotels

    44
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Jimbo Jones
    Favourite Jimbo Jones
    Report
    Nov 23rd 2016, 11:44 AM

    There’s few things more ironic than irish people complaining about foreign aid.

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Mary Gray
    Favourite Mary Gray
    Report
    Nov 23rd 2016, 8:00 AM

    Millions of this money has come from families living on the streets or shelters as these families have worked for years paid tax. Lost their homes in the crash. We now let them live on the streets, hang out in A&E while waiting to see an overworked nurse, doctor on crap wages while we send millions to other countries. I’m not saying we shouldn’t help but get a life, Government officials, Look around you, open up your eyes, smell the coffee. If we don’t get this country back on it’s feet we will be on the list in a number of years looking for humaitarian help from. This will be due to the fact that we will have more people claiming welfare, no one working and if they are they will be on crap wages. We have so many people scamming the system that the officials don’t even know the scams as well as the scammers. I was walking my dog last night after work. Was listening to a scammer guy approx 20 yrs on his phone. Telling who ever was on the other end that in the morning he would be going to collect his dole in the local post office. then heading over to his mams to collect it again there as he had 4 pps numbers. Was going to collect the dole in 4 places. At 188 week that works out to 752 week without any extra he can scam. Then take into account rent allowance. He is taking home more than me & I work 40 hrs a week. He was laughing about it. In clothes which didn’t come from Penny’s, Dunnes, Clothes all top of the range expensive clothes. Which you & I the tax payer paid for. Sorry but am on a rant over this. There was no way I was going to say anything to him as I would like to live another day. We need to start looking into our own services & cut or reduce payment for any person who has never worked a day in their lives due to the fact that they just couldn’t be bothered. My rant for today. As I leave in a few minutes to go to work to pay for his dole.

    99
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Alan Flood
    Favourite Alan Flood
    Report
    Nov 23rd 2016, 9:57 AM

    Best not look into what our politicians are scamming so . Your head would explode … the guy with the 4 pps numbers reminds me of the man with 2 pints ..

    25
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Jimbo Jones
    Favourite Jimbo Jones
    Report
    Nov 23rd 2016, 11:59 AM

    Hi Mary. The consensus between economic studies for the oecd is actually that immigrants pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits Source: https://www.oecd.org/migration/OECD%20Migration%20Policy%20Debates%20Numero%202.pdf Anecdotal evidence is pointless but from my own experience, the worst “scamming” I’ve seen was actually from irish people abusing the hap scheme and getting 1000 pm while families and people in actual need of help can’t get it due to bureaucratic nonsense.

    2
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Sean O'Connor
    Favourite Sean O'Connor
    Report
    Nov 23rd 2016, 7:58 AM

    Five million bribe to the Turks to take them. How’s that one working out?

    73
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Jason Culligan
    Favourite Jason Culligan
    Report
    Nov 23rd 2016, 7:59 AM

    It was two billion, not five million.

    67
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Sean O'Connor
    Favourite Sean O'Connor
    Report
    Nov 23rd 2016, 8:21 AM

    In total, yeah. We’ve already coughed up five million.

    EU-Turkey Refugee Facility – €5,000,000

    50
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Kevin Slater
    Favourite Kevin Slater
    Report
    Nov 23rd 2016, 10:08 AM

    Any neighbouring countries helping out at all?

    50
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Sum Yung Guy
    Favourite Sum Yung Guy
    Report
    Nov 23rd 2016, 9:45 AM

    Hundreds of thousands of Syrian people have been killed in the five-year civil war between government soldiers (supported by Russian military), and rebels who wish to overthrow the Bashar al-Assad regime, with millions more displaced.

    @Gráinne Ní Aodha Any reason why you don’t have who’s supporting the rebels in brackets ie; (America,U.K,Saudi Arabia) ect?

    33
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute @mdmak33
    Favourite @mdmak33
    Report
    Nov 23rd 2016, 12:38 PM

    We are a country with half the population living in poverty.no fault to these poor people,but countries causing this should be funding aid.

    21
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Nasir Saeed
    Favourite Nasir Saeed
    Report
    Nov 23rd 2016, 4:55 PM

    honestly i never ever heard of saudi arabia helping out other countries, ireland has always been very generous with the poor people.

    10
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute #knowingitall
    Favourite #knowingitall
    Report
    Nov 23rd 2016, 8:35 PM

    I know things are not best over there but how come we can give that amount of money and more to other countries and there’s nothing said yet we look for it here to help our own and there is an out cry?????:

    9
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Alois Irlmaier
    Favourite Alois Irlmaier
    Report
    Nov 24th 2016, 5:33 PM

    EU-Turkey Refugee Facility and that sounds to me like a front to help Isis?

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Alois Irlmaier
    Favourite Alois Irlmaier
    Report
    Nov 24th 2016, 5:34 PM

    Turkey is still helping Isis?

    1
Submit a report
Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
Thank you for the feedback
Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.