Ms Clare Daly:

It is nice to see Deputy McHugh. The new Commission has pledged that this migration pact is going to be its thing. As a member of the LIBE committee, which deals with this issue week in and week out, I know there are enormous problems as a result of the continuation for years of what has been a very divisive policy around migration. As was the case when I was in the Dáil, a large number of Irish volunteers, including medics and activists, have been on the Greek islands at the coalface of the Dublin agreement. Desperate people, including unaccompanied minors, have been stranded in what are, in effect, camps. They have no way to get out, a situation that came to a head during the start of the Covid pandemic. That situation pertained well before that.

The migration pact has been put forward as a solution to that. As Mr. Andrews said, there are gaping holes in the pact. We need to be incredibly careful because it continues a policy of the EU of, essentially, privatising border management and externalising responsibilities to countries like Turkey and so on to keep refugees out of Europe. That will continue under this policy when, morally and legally, the EU has an obligation to assess every asylum campaign and avoid refoulement.

We have seen an issue the committee should address. There is an issue with the EU borders. There are terrible things going on with border management. Appalling violence is meted out to people on the Croatian border such as, for example, cases where people have been pushed back by the Croatian authorities, yet the EU said it is ready to join the Schengen acquis. Revelations were published in Der Spiegeltwo weeks ago about Frontex, Europe's border management, not only turning a blind eye to the abuse of migrants and the pushbacks to Libya in Greek waters, but being directly involved in that activity.

The scary part is that the migration pact is primarily based on the policy of returns to countries like Afghanistan where there is already an agreement. It has been deemed to be the most unsafe country in the world. We saw the terrible bombing of Kabul University in recent days and the deaths of students. However, Europe has a policy in place to return more Afghans. In recent weeks, the Croatian authorities robbed, stripped, humiliated and raped Afghan refugees. That is what is going on on the borders of Europe. It is a serious situation.

The constant talk about a migration crisis is actually fuelling racist dog whistling which is giving rise to the far right in Europe and playing into its hands when the numbers are actually quite low. A huge legislative programme has come from this. Our committee is only beginning to receive a number of files. In the last Dáil, we championed the idea of Ireland taking more refugees when the Calais camp was dismantled. We need to do a lot more in terms of the Greek islands. Even though we are a small country, we could be powerful.

We need to join the dots. Why are a lot of these people refugees? It is because of the policies of intervention, the military spend and so on. A lot of the companies which are now getting money from Europe for the first time, via the defence fund, are the same companies that are profiting from the border management to keep out refugees who are the victims of those wars. We need to scrutinise that. We are at the early stages. Perhaps we should reconnect with the committee as the files come before us in the coming weeks and months.