Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As I was in the Chair in the House, I apologise to Mr. O'Gorman that I did not hear his initial submission. Certainly, since the tragedy at Lampedusa, there has been a clear directive that it is the responsibility of any European country to pick people out of the water, not shoot them. One of the results of that directive has been that the people who transport asylum seekers from African countries, for example, are dumping them into the water if they see land because they know they have to be picked up. That is such a dangerous practice. Mr. O'Gorman mentioned the "push-back" from Greece. I have some sympathy for countries such as Greece and Malta that are in the path of waves of asylum seekers escaping torture, war and so on. In Greece, the church has to feed a quarter of a million people every day in Athens alone. It cannot afford to feed its own. If we make rules in Europe whereby people must be processed in the country in which they land, then we have to ensure we can afford to look after such people properly. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the rest of Europe either to abandon that rule and take them to be processed in other countries, or to pay Greece to do it. To sit in judgment on a country that is already starving is very difficult. It is all right to condemn them, but they are in a difficult situation.

I read Mr. O'Gorman's report and noted that Nigeria was not mentioned, but my colleague Deputy Brendan Smith mentioned it. I read in a newspaper article that Amnesty International said there had been a warning of the Boko Haram attack. We raised the issue at the meeting last week. The lack of any kind of action or interest from the rest of the world is pervasive. If one good thing comes out of that attack it will be to highlight the fact that so many people think it is all right that girls should not go to school. That is a point of view that is quite prevalent in many parts of the world and it is something that has to be fought at every turn.

I agree with the Chairman that this is only a small committee, and maybe Ireland does not have a big impact. However, we cannot be silent. When I raised this issue yesterday the Chairman asked for the Nigerian ambassador to appear before the committee because we want to make it absolutely clear to him that we are very unhappy at Nigeria's lack of action. I do not know if he has responded. I appreciate that there has been a little more activity since on a world scale, but we have to use whatever powers we have here and also our powers through the European Union, the Council of Europe and the UN. We cannot be silent when such incidents take place, or assume that somebody will do something. Their own government knew about it in advance and did nothing to prevent it, and then did nothing to save the girls subsequently. I feel I am lecturing somebody.