Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I apologise to the Minister of State as I was at the housing committee and could not be present before now.

I have expressed my horror and outrage at the reprehensible deal done by the European Union with Turkey. It is, unquestionably, immoral, ethically wrong and, in actual fact, will be proved to be illegal. Not only this, it is an utter shambles which will not last and will not work. Without any doubt, what it facilitates is allowing the mass forced deportation of asylum seekers who have a legitimate right to claim asylum in Europe back to a country which can in no way be cited as a safe country for refugees. Testimony has been given by organisations such as Amnesty International on the stories of refugees in Turkey's border provinces about people being killed on the border. Men, women and children have been rounded up on a near daily basis since mid-January, which is completely against international law. In many instances, we are speaking about unaccompanied minors and pregnant women. It is not just Syrians who are involved, as we know that many Afghani nationals have also been deported, but to where? We must ask this question. The countries to which they are being sent back are incredibly unsafe. It is an absolute fact that the Taliban is being outmatched by ISIS which is even stronger than it and the two are fighting with each other. There is no question or doubt about it, as the Afghani Government, weak and all as it is, has stated that if these people are returned, their safety cannot be guaranteed. They will die. That is what we are facilitating.

Meanwhile in Greece the situation is utterly chaotic. We know that refugees are being kept in closed rather than open detention centres in order that they can be sent back to Turkey. There are also, of course, heroic stories from Lesbos about the huge voluntary effort made by ordinary people to assist asylum seekers. NGO sources have confirmed that riots have taken place in some of these areas, with police attacking children and the use of tear gas. Is this the Europe we have created, with unaccompanied children fleeing from wars being beaten by the police in closed detention centres because of the Dublin regulation? Is this the European Union over which we will stand? The European Union has a key role and responsibility for creating the crisis in the first place through its direct and indirect facilitation of the US military intervention in the Middle East.

We speak about refugees. It is an easy word to say, but it does not really mean anything and one does not really have to think about it. What we are speaking about is a human being, a person. In many instances we are speaking about a child because, according to the United Nations refugee body, many children are among the people who have been forced to flee their homes in terror and leave everything behind because of interference in their countries or civil war. This involves physical and psychological trauma. We know that at least 10,000 children have disappeared since the beginning of the refugee crisis. Deputy Mick Wallace and I visited Calais the weekend before last. Since the French Government chose to bulldoze sections of the camp almost two months ago, 129 children have gone missing in Calais. This has happened in France, the great country of liberty and equality. No one is looking for these children or knows what became of them. Did some of them reach England? Were some of them abducted or killed? The answer is nobody knows. We met three children in Dunkirk - two girls and a boy from the same family aged between seven and 14 years. Their parents had died in making the journey and they had made the rest of the journey on their own.

People have a fundamental human right to seek asylum and we are not giving it to them with this reprehensible deal which makes me utterly sick. What is most scary is that it is not the end of the process but only the start. Last summer we had what can only be described as the safety valve of Germany agreeing to take in 1 million people. That will not be available this year. Does this that mean the people will stop coming? Of course, they will keep coming because they have no other choice. In many instances, those who left first were the men and all of the organisations working at the coalface state the women and children are due to follow. They are perhaps stuck in camps in Lebanon awaiting the message to come. Europe's attempt to shut its borders will not stop them.

It will just make it harder and will just mean that more of them will die at sea or going through Libya or wherever. It is a fact and it is happening already. Similarly, they will enrich the smugglers who operate at every single border throughout the journey they have to make across Europe.

One of the points we must register here is that Ireland has a role to play, not least because of our culpability regarding Shannon Airport and being responsible for this in the first place, but also because we can do and be something that this country has always put itself out there as being, namely, a sort of world leader in welcoming. We are supposed to be the land of céad míle fáilte, a hundred thousand welcomes. Let us put our money where our mouth is. In fairness, Irish people in their droves pledged to provide accommodation under the Irish Red Cross's solidarity campaign. The Irish Refugee Council and the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission have said we must reassess the number we are taking in. I want us to take in more than 4,000. I cannot believe that over the past year, when the situation has deteriorated in the Middle East, we have only taken in a handful of people out of our agreed number. We are not putting Ireland out there as a destination. We made this point last week. Why are we not assuming a leadership role in fighting and being a voice for the rights of child refugees through promoting at EU level enhanced measures for the protection of migrant and refugee children? That would be an easy and very laudable thing to do. Why are we not doing it? Can we seriously examine this? At the moment, there are hundreds of children, unaccompanied minors, in Calais, which is not that far away. Could we not send some of our Department officials to consider processing applications for those children to come safely to Ireland? Why would we not do so? Why are we not spearheading in the EU efforts to consider reunification for those children, pathways for family members to reunite and so on? Why are we not looking at the very valuable role often played by people who accompany these children on their journey? They are not family members; they are people they happen to meet on the way. They have developed a deep attachment to those people and there should be a process for keeping them together and assessing their applications.

There is a real urgency in respect of this. It makes me sick that we allow EU fiscal rules to be broken for security measures. In Calais, there are five different police forces and 600 extra police officers have been seconded there, with hotels, accommodation, etc, required. There are perhaps 4,000 people in Calais and 5,000 in the wider area, with 1,000 in Dunkirk and so on. Providing them with safe haven and passage would be far cheaper than all of these measures and yet we ignore them. They are bulldozed, having been told to go there, and their possessions are ruined.

I want to finish with a letter that we got from some refugees we met in Dunkirk, where the mayor has cleaned up the act and made the situation a little more habitable for this group of mainly Kurdish refugees. They sum up quite well what we are standing over:

What can I write for you? You know that we are now 800 refugees. We are the refugees who could pay money to the smugglers. They made it, but we cannot pay so we are still here. We don't want to come illegally to the UK or to Ireland or Scotland, but it should be so easy for you. We are not 800,000. We are 800 refugees. Please don't leave us alone. We are human, the same flesh and blood living on the earth. Why are we being sacrificed on this planet by a system that humans created?  Why are we living in bad conditions and being ignored and for how long? But we will never give up. It's been ten months, eight for some, six months. We are here waiting. We still waiting.

This will continue and they will be joined by others as long as the EU and the West interfere in their countries. The least we can do is take a lead for children, and I hope that the Irish Government adopts a proactive role in the EU in arguing for a number of these, including the right to apply for asylum from areas like the refugee camps to any destination across Europe, as people require.

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