Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am glad, on behalf of the Green Party, to speak on this challenging issue we face. We are conscious that, as the spring ends and summer arrives, we can expect a rise in the numbers of migrants coming across by boat, be it from Libya and Turkey, into Italy and Greece, respectively. This is a challenge that the whole of the European Union must address and we, as a country, must play our part.

I share some of the sentiments expressed and my party, both in Europe and elsewhere, has raised concerns regarding the approach that the European Union has taken. The potential undermining of the basic freedoms and rights that we recognise in our Union gives it great strength and the potential undermining of those in the nature of how we treat people fleeing as refugees from war and conflict is something that is central to the very rights that our Union represents. There is a real challenge here. We saw last year over 1 million refugees coming to our borders. In the Union, that is put into pale shadow when compared to what other, often much poorer, countries, such as Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, have had to accommodate. It should give us some sense of proportion in terms of our response to this.

I want to draw attention to a long-term or broader perspective in terms of what may be driving the migration or what we might expect in terms of ongoing migration. I refer to the connecting issue of climate change, in terms of how it is already driving migration and can be expected to drive it in the coming years. I am conscious that one must be careful in this regard because it is difficult to assess one particular weather event or situation in the context of bigger phenomena, but it would be wrong for us to ignore it. The US Secretary of State, Mr. John Kerry, recognised, as many others did, that the conflict in Syria, which is complex and has a range of national and wider geopolitical causes, was also at least exacerbated by the significant four or five year drought leading up to 2011, which drove approximately 1.5 million Syrians from the land into cities and which exacerbated the civil unrest when it arose. It was a contributory factor, but one that was not insignificant and one that we will be able to expect in other countries as climate change starts to evolve in the way the scientists have outlined.

I will share a couple of personal reflections on that because in recent years I have had the benefit of being able to visit a number of climate institutes which are trying to assess what the likely progress is. This issue is not coming from a fringe concern or marginal global institutes. One of the projects I had the great pleasure to visit is the Potsdam institute outside Berlin where I was able to see some of the modelling work that it was doing for the World Bank. The World Bank had done a major report on what the world would look like if we moved towards a 4°C warmer world, which is our present direction. The most scary prospect in that regard - if one looks at the modelling of each area of the world it is not easy to be certain as to what will happen - is where they showed us the modelling for central India in a 4°C warmer world. While climate change will present certain difficulties to Ireland in terms of rising sea level and flooding, in some ways it will bring certain changes that will improve the growing climate or bring challenges that we can face. In central India, according to the modelling of the Potsdam institute, one was looking at temperature increases that would make the centre of India practically uninhabitable and the consequences of that elsewhere in terms of the complications or implications for future migration is something we must think about and assess.

Similarly, there are significant international studies looking at the risk areas in the Persian Gulf. The assessment, because of the excessive heat and drought there, is that when one gets above heat levels of approximately 50°C it becomes effectively uninhabitable. That is not now a marginal risk or long-term prospect. That is something that we may start to see. It is a background issue to take into account. This will not be something that is merely a one-off event in one country due to local circumstances, it is due to bigger long-term forces that we must prepare for.

I looked at the recent statistics on where the migration to Europe is coming from at present. It is obviously driven by Syria, being the largest factor, and Afghanistan and Iraq, where the conflicts in those countries are driving people to flee. However, we are already starting to see similar trends in countries slightly further away, for example in Ethiopia, where we face an immediate issue in terms of possible drought there this May, in the whole of the region of the Horn of Africa but also in countries such as Pakistan. Pakistan is a country that has been hit by very significant flooding and other events and we are starting to see almost 50,000 people a year migrate to Europe because of such uninhabitable terrain. It is not that people want to leave their home. These locations are places where people have lived for tens of thousands of years in harmonious connection with nature but, because it is no longer possible to live in such locations, this we must take into account.

This is the scale of the challenge and change that we must prepare for and we must play our role in how we manage it.

I would like to make my central point about what we can do, and it is difficult to address the full issue in a short time. We need to be ambitious about the number of refugees we are willing to take. We must manage it, so we do not lose the confidence of the Irish people, and ensure political responses opposed to welcoming refugees do not develop here. We must manage the integration of refugees, so that they and the next generation are fully Irish and are seen as fully connected to our country. This requires our attention and political agreement across the floor. It is one of the major issues on which we could probably have consensus during the next two or three years, the lifetime of the Government. We can agree that we are ambitious and want to manage it by providing housing, integration and education. The Parliament should set itself the aim of prioritising it and being good at it. I do not hear disharmony on the broad perspective as to where we stand and what we want to do.

To do this, we must change our current process. The statistics on how Ireland performs do not accord with what I have heard today. Across the floor, every party I have heard has said it wanted to play its part and be good at it. However, according to the international and European assessments, we are not top of the list. Ireland deals with a very low number of asylum cases quickly. Our approval rate is one of the worst. Putting people in the existing system into a longer decision-making process is a shameful record which does not match what is being said here today. Our treatment of people in direct provision, whereby they cannot work or even cook for themselves, is something we must change immediately, regardless of our working within the European system.

We need to increase our spending on overseas aid. This will be a difficult political decision, given that it will require tough choices that will take money from other very deserving areas. We have a very successful aid programme in that it is not tied to commercial interests as it is in some countries. We should not connect our food industry, foreign policy or military policy with our aid programme in any way. We should stick to what we have always done, and which we have been good at, namely, being seen as independent, neutral and generous in our aid programme.

Although the Tánaiste lauded our position, and €600 million is a lot of money, we are slipping back on our commitment to contribute 0.7% of GNP to overseas development aid even though our economy is growing so strongly, at a rate of 7% per annum. Our contribution is below 0.37% or 0.39% of GNP; the officials might be able to inform me of the exact figure. Ireland's strategic success as an economy is based on being a centre for Europe, Middle East and Africa, EMEA, industry and business centres. It would connect to what people have said in this Chamber. If what we say is to turn into real action, we must increase spending on aid. The aid budget helps protect people against adverse climate developments in their countries and the consequences of war. It is the best way of solving the problem and we must do it as well as welcoming refugees to our country.

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