Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

The picture conjured up by Deputy Ross of the Irish delegation going cap in hand and doffing the cap to the European establishment is one that we can all visualise. It is a tragedy and a particular disgrace against the backdrop of what is going on in Europe at the moment, with a refugee crisis to which the European response has been too little, too late. That response has ignored the reality that it is not Europe that has a migrant crisis but the migrants who have a problem with Europe and with the military interventions by this Government's allies and friends in the United States. Those interventions are one of the key reasons for the large number of refugees. The Minister of State would do well at that meeting to remind his European counterparts of that fact. He should also recognise, within that, Ireland's role and complicity by allowing the US military to continue to use Shannon Airport as a "virtual forward airbase" for its forces, as described by Dr. Tom Clonan.

This Government wants a pat on the back for accepting 4,000 refugees, and I am glad that we are accepting them. I note that the Minister for Justice and Equality said last week that the refugees would not be put into the direct provision system, clearly acknowledging that the Government could not humiliate itself by allowing refugees and war victims from Syria to be put up in a few caravans in Mosney. That would not look too good. It would help if the Government focused on the fact that there are people living in such conditions now, and that reality must be addressed too.

If Europe wants to go forward it must look at where it came from. The Minister of State might ask his European colleagues what they thought would happen when they started channelling money away from helping people and into building walls and fences. They cut the Mare Nostrum programme and replaced it with Operation Triton, which to a large extent is about border control and not about humanitarian refugee support. I welcome the fact that the programme has been somewhat reformed, but the reality is that most European expenditure is going on border controls and not on assisting migrants. That is not the way forward. Will the Minister of State make those points at the meeting? Will he also support the calls for an independent investigation into the war crime that happened in the Médicins sans Frontières hospital in Afghanistan? Will the Minister of State call for an investigation into that incident, in which 22 people, including three children, were butchered? People were burned in their beds in that atrocity. What position will the Minister of State take on it? Maybe that is something on which he will take a lead for a change.

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