Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

It is nonsense. I visited Syria many times and I know that most ordinary Syrians have never heard of Ireland. They do not know we exist. If one asked them why they do not wish to come to Ireland, they would probably reply that they had never been asked, they have never heard of it or nobody had ever suggested it. We have committed to taking 4,000 Syrian refugees, but we have taken less than 500. Some of the groups advocating for those refugees will be outside the Dáil today and it behoves all Members to go out and show them some support.

Europe has a shameful record in general on the treatment of refugees. I will give one historical example. In 1938, while Hitler was engaged in his policy of ethnic cleansing of the Jews, a conference was held in the small villiage of Évian-les-Bains in France to discuss what to do with all of the Jews fleeing Germany, how to deal with that and what countries would take them in. Of the 38 countries represented at the conference, none except the Dominican Republic would take any more refugees. The rest were left to be slaughtered by Hitler's ethnic cleansing. We are not comparing like with like, but we are comparing that shameful record of Europe in dealing with a refugee crisis with how it is dealing with, or not dealing with, one today.

One of the benefits of the Cold War was the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. That was torn up by the European Union in the deal it made with Turkey. Like other Deputies, I will reiterate the shocking figures. Approximately 10,000 children have disappeared since the start of the refugee crisis and an average of two children per day drown in the Mediterranean. Just think about that and look at some of the material on YouTube and Channel 4 News. RTE news does not do this crisis any justice. On average, two children drown per day and this is being used by the loudmouths of the far right to spread poisonous messages. It is time that decent people stood up against this, and that this country began to honour its commitment to take in refugees.

A number of other issues must be recognised. One is the arms trade, which is engaged in this in a big way. Three of the six biggest arms dealers are members of the European Union - Germany, France and Britain. Germany, for all its talk of taking in refugees, has sold a huge amount of weapons to Syria over the years. It stopped recently but had sold items such as Global Hawk drones and all sorts of fancy weapons over the years.

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