I wish to raise the plight of a constituent of mine, whose family are constituents of the Taoiseach's. John White is prohibited from leaving Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, UAE. I have raised this matter on previous occasions with the Taoiseach and with Deputy Flanagan when he was Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade. John has been working in the Middle East for almost 30 years as a building contractor and because of debts owed to him, he was unable to meet financial commitments, was brought to court and sentenced to five years. On appeal that was reduced to 18 months. He served 18 months and was due to be released on 15 August 2014 but when he went to the courts to collect his passport he was informed that one of the companies had taken a civil case against him and he got another sentence of three years. He is now out of prison but has no passport and is unable to return to his young family. He is in poor physical health, although he has improved somewhat. Will the Taoiseach and the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade investigate the possibility of issuing a temporary passport to John so that he can return to his family for Christmas? Will the Taoiseach ask the Minister to provide an immediate update to John's deeply distressed and devastated family?

I am aware of the case and I have met with John's former partner. Unfortunately, issuing a temporary or full passport would not solve the problem. He would not be allowed to leave the UAE. It is not a question of having a passport or not, it is a question of whether the UAE authorities would allow him to leave and at present they will not. I have written to Sheikh Khalifa about it and may have the opportunity to raise it personally with him at the EU-Arab summit in February.