Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I likewise think it is something we need to be involved in. There are a few issues around this. The Minister mentioned that there would be a pool of expertise to assist countries that are under particular pressure. On numerous occasions Ireland has been one of the countries that is under pressure. It continues to be because for the size of our population we have quite large numbers of people coming here seeking international protection, which they are quite entitled to do. Such applications must be processed and we have legal obligations to do that in a coherent and rigorous fashion and people have a right to appeal if they are refused protection initially and again that has to be gone through and there are legal obligations around all that. Sometimes that can put great strain on our own system and we may sometimes require the assistance from the pool of expertise and the additional resources that may be available through this agency. I would like the Minister to comment on that. Is it something he sees happening?

The other issue is asylum in Europe and across the European Union. I am not sure whether the Minister has read Sally Hayden's book My Fourth Time, We Drowned. She writes for The Irish Times and the book is about the EU's response to people coming across the Mediterranean and how it has engaged with Libya to get its coast guard to round people up, bring them back and put them into compounds very similar to concentration camps, from what anyone can see. There are huge issues with all of that. It is about the way Europe has dealt with these matters. We also have a situation in Türkiye where the authorities there have also been engaged by the EU to deal with people trying to cross into European territory. There are serious issues with respect to the human rights of these people that must be acknowledged and dealt with. If we are engaging with the group and are going to be part of it, which I appreciate we have to be, we need to be raising the concerns around these issues and doing so very strongly. It is inappropriate that people who make it across the Mediterranean are treated one way and others, who can be rounded up at the behest of Europe and brought back to other jurisdictions outside Europe, are treated in a disgraceful fashion. We need to find a means of doing much better with all that, because there have been very serious human rights violations in respect of those matters. I would like the Minister to comment on that.