Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Government’s decision to let 4,000 of those hundreds of thousands of desperate people, trying to flee the most horrific situations in Syria, Kurdistan, Eritrea and elsewhere, to come to this country. Our only response to people fleeing from these desperate circumstances has to be support and compassion. We should not, for one minute, allow anybody to encourage the idea these people represent a threat. It dishonours our own history if we act with anything less than compassion and solidarity to refugees attempting to come to Europe or this country.

The ships we see trying to cross the Mediterranean to escape war and horror are the 21st century equivalent of the coffin ships which left this country when people fled the horrors of the Famine to seek safety, security and a life elsewhere. If céad míle fáilte romhat is to mean anything, it has to be brought to bear on this situation. We must offer support and safety to people fleeing desperate circumstances. The people of this country have demonstrated their willingness in this regard. My office in Dún Laoghaire has acted as a collection point for materials to be sent to Calais. There was an amazing response. I have never seen anything like it. Our office was packed to the rafters with blankets, toiletries and clothes. All the indications are that the people of this country recognise the desperate plight of the refugees and want to help and support them.

The response of the European Union has been slow and in some cases outrageous. The attitude of the Hungarian Government is despicable but Europe as a whole has been slow to act. It is engaging in a numbers game and playing both sides of the fence in the debate on refugees. On the one hand, it speaks of the need for compassion but, on the other hand, it speaks of a need to strengthen border controls. We do not need to strengthen border controls, we need to open them to as many people as need assistance and support. To do less would be to dishonour our history. Would we have wanted border controls and restrictions on the millions of people fleeing this country during the Famine? Would we want them if, God forbid, anything like it were to happen to us again in the future? I subscribe to the view that we do not need borders on frontiers at all. There is one race, the human race, and our response should be to treat people as human beings and give them the support and backing they need.

It is also important to say there is no connection whatsoever between an increased population and adversity. If a small or reducing population was good, which is the other side of the argument, Ireland would have been the best place in the world in the 1950s and the 1980s when hundreds of thousands of people were leaving the country. Did things get better when we had mass emigration? Of course not, they got much worse. People are not a burden. It is people who generate wealth, provide services and make a society function. We are a very underpopulated country and Europe has an ageing population. Over the next 50 years or so, we need probably an extra 50 million people to sustain the European economy and its society. People are not a burden or a threat. If given the opportunity to thrive they become the world's greatest resource.

There are two things we must do beyond providing a humanitarian response. If some people are worried because they are victims of things such as the housing crisis, poverty and deprivation, we must recognise they are right to be angry about those things. They are wrong if they direct their anger at refugees but they are right to be angry about people living in tents and families stuck in homelessness, because none of it is necessary. We have more than enough resources to resolve the housing crisis and provide housing for all, including the refugees coming here and the people on the streets, but we have failed to do it. We have also failed to do it for the refugees who have arrived in this country to date. The direct provision system is a matter of shame for this country. This must be the catalyst for us to put resources into ensuring that everyone who needs a house, be they a refugee or an Irish citizen, gets it as a matter of right and that the shame of the direct provision system is ended.

As stated by Deputy Wallace, we have to address the reasons this is happening. To cut a very long story short, if we had not facilitated the United States and if the United States had not bombed Iraq, this would not be happening. If the western world did not continue to arm Saudi Arabia with its despicable manipulations in that region, this would not be happening. If we stop supporting dictators and despots across the Middle East and north Africa this would not happen. Yet we continue to do it. It must stop. Our complicity with those despicable manipulations by the big powers in north Africa and the Middle East must end.

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