Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman and the technical support people who have given my voice a recording again. I thank them for their swift action on it.

The Minister of State has had time to cool off, so I will kick back in again and try to put the pressure on. We were talking about security. It is my view that our State is not dealing with security on the same level as the 27. There is co-operation among our police forces and defence forces. I have no doubt about that. However, when we move into the higher levels of security services, I do not believe we have the level of co-operation that we need. I have been calling for the appointment of a director of homeland security for some time and for the development of a homeland security service. I do not expect the Minister of State will do much in that regard - I do not think it comes under her portfolio - but it is something that she will find levied at her as she goes around Europe. She needs to be aware of that. We do not have a relationship with the likes of MI5. It is as simple as that, and I make no apology for pointing it out.

The other issue is the issue of online security and monitoring. In particular, much of the terrorism is now taking place through social media and various other types of media. By Government admission and not mine, we need to amend 50 pieces of legislation. As far as I recall, that was announced in 2016. Nothing has been done to bring that legislation before the Houses of the Oireachtas. Unless we amend the legislation, we are not able to co-operate on a European level with the tracking of digital data as it is moving through the system.

On migration, the Irish Government has lived up to its commitment so far. I am very grateful to the Department of Justice and Equality. I travelled to Sicily some time ago to look at the migration crisis as the part of COSAC. I was the Irish representative. There is an issue. We still have 1,298 migrants to relocate into this country and the Italians are refusing to allow our immigration people on the ground. I made the point at the meeting that, unless that happens, we cannot fulfil our full commitment. This morning we heard the Italian ambassador on the airwaves speaking about the problem in Italy. There is no getting away from the problem, which is massive when out there on the ground. Last year some 19,000 people landed at the tiny port of Pozzallo that I visited in Ragusa.

By the time I got there, which is now almost two months ago, close to 5,000 had already arrived. Some of my colleagues have spoken about the need for European countries to stand up and take ownership of this crisis and to offer a place of refuge to those migrants.

This is a major humanitarian crisis. I am the first person here to point out that we must recognise the difference between an economic migrant and a refugee or asylum seeker. When I looked at the numbers coming through Pozzallo, roughly 3% of those who were rescued in the Mediterranean came from countries such as Syria, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. The remainder had come from countries such as Nigeria, Eritrea and Bangladesh. We must recognise that a significant number of those arriving in Europe are economic migrants. Just because they are economic migrants, that does not mean we do not have to look after them. We in Ireland above all countries should know what it means to be an economic migrant as many of our people have been economic migrants since the time of the Famine. We need to establish clearer guidelines on how we deal with economic migrants versus how we deal with refugees and asylum seekers. Every refugee landing in any country in Europe deserves to be given a place of safety. For those who are arriving for economic needs, we will have to come up with strategies. Those strategies will involve investing in their home countries in order to incentivise those migrants to return home and stay at home, and ensuring that the corporate world is made to pay its share.A teeshirt manufacturer based in Donegal moved to Morocco because it could get labour at 20% of the cost it was paying for it in Donegal. A major sports manufacturers moved from County Meath to China because it could get labour at 20% of the cost there. Have those manufacturers reduced their prices? No, they have not. They are making super normal profits on the backs of workers in Morocco and other African countries, in China and other parts of Asia. The European Union need to penalise and tax those people in order that we can invest in Morocco, Nigeria and other countries and give them a reasonable standard of living. Those corporate entities have to be made to pay. I made that point in Germany. I was there as part of the German-Irish friendship group and the Germans feel exactly the same as I do. Those corporations have to start becoming good citizens of Europe. With respect to the definition of an economic migrant versus an asylum seeker or a refugee, we have to come up with that strategy.

A refugee or any individual who arrives in Sicily is picked up the Mediterranean. Those unfortunate people are treated horrendously before they are put on to some miserable piece of rubber or a timber boat and pushed out into the Mediterranean. They are told by the traffickers that it is only five or six mile over there and that they will be fine, knowing in their hearts and souls that it is not the case, but they also know that the Irish Navy, the Norwegians and the Italians will be there to rescue these people. When migrants arrive in a port, they are first allowed to have a shower, they are given clean clothes and a SIM card and then they are brought for interview. The purpose of the interview is to establish who the migrants are. Most of the migrants arriving have no identification papers. If they had them, they were taken off them by the traffickers and, in some cases, they destroyed them themselves. This is the best way for a migrant to get a brand new identity. When a migrant on arriving in Sicily is asked him name, he may say his name is John McCormack. When asked if he has papers, he will say he does not. He is told he is welcome to Sicily and to take a seat until an officer talks to him. The migrant gets a brand new identity and he can then move through Europe.

I am not saying we are importing terrorists. I want to be very clear about that. I am saying that there is a security risk. Most of the terrorism that has taken place in Europe recently has been carried out by from home-grown terrorists. Therefore, the issue is not one of terrorism. We strongly vet the people coming into this country. How do we do that and establish who anybody is coming into the country? We have no way of knowing. Do we pick up the telephone and ring the Nigerians and ask them do they know John McCormack? When we do that and they say they do not him, we tell them that he is a big heavy guy who is balding and ask them are they sure they do not know him, they say that they do not know John McCormack. In a that way, John McCormack becomes a new personality who moves through Europe and once he gets into Europe if he within the Schengen area, he can move anywhere he wants. We have to find a better way of dealing with the migration issue.

On the issue of our sister countries within the European Union, I have spoken directly to people from Hungary and Poland and I have attended meetings with them in Pozzallo in Sicily. The problem they have is not unlike our own. They have masses of homeless people. Their politicians, just like ourselves, know that they will have to face their electorate in the not too distant future. Politics is taking over from where humanity should be. It is taking over because the politicians are with faced with the problem of whether they can really bring migrants into the country and house when their own nationals are homeless. There is a moral issue here. It is not right for us in this country to turn our eye on anybody else and criticise them. They have their problems and we have ours.

Having spoken to people from different countries around the European Union, it is my view that the greatest single threat to the European Union and the European community is migration. It will cause the rift and the division that Brexit will not cause. Unless we come to terms with the migration issue and do so soon, we will find ourselves in serious trouble. One of issues the Minister of State might consider when talking to her opposite numbers around Europe is that we would consider giving economic migrants a visa for five or ten years, where they could come to a country, work, earn money, sent it home, just like the Irish did in America and in London. When I went to London in 1968 I sent a fiver home a week. I used to get it all back when I came back on holiday but that is neither here nor there. Anybody I knew who was in London at that time was sending money home. Any house one would visit in the west would remember the dollars coming in from the United States. Economic migration is not such a terrible thing. We did it for an awful long time and we did it again in 2008. Let us not knock it but let us find a strategy that allows it to be orderly and manageable. Instead of allowing these traffickers to traffick people, let us set up migration places in Nigeria, Eritrea and Bangladesh, and if people want to come here they can apply for a visa in the proper way and we would allow them into the country. Having said that, I am acutely aware of the fact that Irish people go to America without visas and perhaps they too should observe what I am talking about. I am sorry for taking a little longer than I should have but the Chairman did cut me off earlier.