Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I would like to share time with Deputy Wallace. The Minister said at yesterday's meeting of the Joint Committee on Justice and Equality that the ISF will be used for things like automatic facial recognition, information sharing between EU states, advance security at airports and surveillance. This type of thing should send a shiver down the spine of anybody who gives a hoot about civil liberties. The Minister went on to say that he is keen for Ireland to play a full role in that sort of stuff. He described it as the "best practice" in the war against terror. I have to break it to him that this kind trampling on civil liberties and this kind of security lunacy is the terror with which we should be at war. None of the nonsense that has been pursued since the Americans invented this concept 20 years ago is making any of us safer. Instead, it has made us vastly more insecure, frightened and uneasy. It has killed hundreds of thousands of desperate refugees in the Mediterranean Sea. It has invaded the private spaces and private lives of innocent citizens across the bloc.

Just under €11 billion is being spent on security in the EU between 2014 and 2020. Approximately €6.9 billion of this is being spent between the ISF and the asylum, migration and integration fund, the latter of which falls under the heading of security, which is inevitable in light of the EU's weaponised racism. A further €1.7 billion is being spent on the European security research project and €2.4 billion is being spent on EU home affairs agencies such as Europol and Frontex. Now the Government wants us to give the nod to a proposal which would double the ISF. Indeed, the EU's stated position is that it will double funding across the board on all of its security programmes. This is completely and utterly ineffective. If the western powers and the EU are serious about combatting terrorism, they will stop backing states that have wreaked war and destruction in the Middle East. It is reprehensible that we are here. Contrary to what Deputy O'Callaghan said, this is not a testament to our democracy. We would not even be discussing this if we had not kicked off at this week's committee meeting. Where are the so-called civil libertarians in the left-wing groups and the Social Democrats? Nobody is paying attention to these issues. People will wake up in years to come, when public money is being spent on the security industry and the weapons are being turned in, but it will be too late.

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