Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

If we opt in, we are opting in to these measures. It is the case at European level that any measures or laws that are passed are continuously reviewed. A new asylum agency has been established, which we opted in to last year. One of the benefits of the agency is that we are pooling together our resources to look at migratory flows, the challenges and issues that arise, what works and what does not, what supports might be needed and what changes might be needed. There is a built-in mechanism whereby the Commission always looks at what works and does not work.

The reason this pact is happening now is that the measures we adopted previously are not working. Dublin III is not working. We need to have a common system whereby we do not have one country doing something differently, which means people apply for asylum in a number of member states and take away spaces from those who genuinely could be using the system. This updates the previous systems because they did not work. If, in several years' time, we were to identify that we need to change the system again, it has always been the case that the EU works collectively and together. I cannot stress enough that we cannot do this on our own. We cannot deal with this on our own. The UK has tried to do it on its own. Not only has the number of people seeking international protection there increased, but it is now looking to mirror much of what we are developing in the pact to try to ensure it has a system that works as well.