Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

People have been horrified at weekend news reports of the deaths of an estimated 900 people in the Mediterranean. Many of those people died because unscrupulous traffickers locked refugees, including women and children, in the hold of the ship that sank. Some 1,500 citizens have drowned on their way to Europe in 2015, which is 50 times more than at this point in 2014. There are reports of other ships having sunk in the past 24 hours.

The images of refugees being rescued are now a nightly sight on our television screens. These people are fleeing conflicts in Syria, Libya, Somalia, Nigeria and other places. They are also fleeing famine and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. Like the Irish through the centuries, they are prosecuted, persecuted, injured, hungry and looking for a better life. We should not lose sight of the fact that their horrors are a direct result of Europe's colonial record over the years and the much more recent policies of the West towards north Africa and the Middle East.

Italy has urged the EU to act to prevent further loss of life. EU foreign Ministers met and produced a ten-point plan which, in my humble opinion, is inadequate for dealing with this humanitarian disaster. For example, doubling funds to the EU border patrol mission will not provide the search and rescue operations needed in the face of this crisis. I ask the Taoiseach to outline to the Dáil the message he will bring to our EU partners and the proposals he will argue for at Thursday's meeting of the European Council.

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