THE DEPARTMENT OF Foreign Affairs assisted over 8,000 citizens to return home during the Covid-19 pandemic, Minister Simon Coveney said today. 

Speaking before the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence, Coveney said that the pandemic “left no corner of the globe untouched” and that citizens had been returned from 126 countries. 

“In the early months of the pandemic we focused on coordinating consular assistance to EU citizens, and my department has assisted over 8,000 Irish citizens to return home safely from 126 different countries,” he said. 

Coveney also outlined financial support provided by Ireland to the global fight against Covid-19.

The minister said an EU-wide package has provided “over €35 billion to date” and that “Ireland has allocated over €140 million to the global Covid-19 response so far in 2020″. 

Coveney also outlined his sadness as the death of Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, who died aged 65 of coronavirus complications. 

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“I met with Saeb on numerous occasions in Palestine and in Dublin. He devoted well over 30 years of his life to the cause of peace between Palestine and Israel and my sincere condolences to his family and to the Palestinian people,” Coveney said.