Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for being late but I have managed to catch up on what the Minister of State had to say earlier. Some of it was to be expected anyway.

Regarding Operation Sophia, which the Minister of State mentioned in his contribution and which has come before the committee on a number of occasions, I have raised concerns in the past about the change from the original operation to Operation Sophia. He explains in his contribution some of the logic behind Operation Sophia. It concerns not just people smuggling, but also oil smuggling and weapons smuggling. Perhaps at some stage he will be able to tell us how successful Operation Sophia has been in respect of the oil smuggling and weapons smuggling, if at all, because most of what we have heard thus far is that the international force involved, now including the LÉ Samuel Beckett, in the Mediterranean is concerned mainly with intercepting the people smugglers, whether in Libyan or international waters. My concern is that I have had a number of reports from different NGOs, some of which are no longer operating in the area because of restrictions placed by the Italians and others, that are concerned that the naval ships in international waters have stood by - "stood to" might be the correct term but I am not 100% sure - while the Libyan coastguard has got aggressive with people in boats which are foundering and people in the water, including those swimming towards those vessels. These people would prefer to be picked up by the international ships than by the Libyans.

The other concern we raised at the time, and which I am still concerned about, is the state of the detention centres to which we are condemning those who are picked up to be returned. A photographic booklet was circulated recently. I do not know how up to date the photos are. It concerns the human suffering inside Libya's migrant detention centres. The Médecins Sans Frontières group has circulated it. The information I have is that conditions have got worse than the horrific portrayal in the aforementioned booklet.

What work is being done by the EU in particular, because this is what we are dealing with-----