Dáil debates

Wednesday, 2 November 2016

Calais Migrant Camp: Statements

 

9:10 pm

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

Like my colleague, I thank the campaigners in the Visitors Gallery. We owe them a debt. We would not be discussing this tonight were it not for the hard work they have done and their insistence on ensuring this matter was brought before the House. We will do our best to support it and to argue with the other side of the House to take this issue very seriously. I also salute the courage and determination of the young people in Calais and, indeed, of all refugees who have managed to make their way to Europe. They have resisted and struggled against the most appalling conditions. Against incredible, inhumane odds they have made it to Europe and are seeking our humanitarian assistance.

Given the scale of the crisis in Calais and across Europe, the figure of 200 minors is more symbolic than anything else. We should take these unaccompanied minors, after the French Government has destroyed the camp. However, we need to do much more on all the associated issues around the devastation and humanitarian crisis for refugees across Europe. Tonight's discussion has highlighted one simple truth, namely, that the record of this and past Governments on refugees is simply appalling and an eternal shame to the country. Time after time, we have witnessed Government Ministers hiding behind various excuses and administrative devices to justify a callous and inhumane policy.

Although I was not in the House for the Minister for Justice and Equality's statement, I read it. She said:

We will continue with our efforts to increase the intake from the relocation countries of unaccompanied minors... If It emerges from Calais over the coming weeks that Ireland is a genuine location of choice for some of these young people, and our assistance is requested, we can of course respond in a humanitarian and proactive way.

It has emerged that there are hundreds of minors in Calais. It has emerged via the workers in the Gallery who have given up their personal lives and sometimes their professional lives to work with those children, that Ireland is indeed a country of choice and the Minister's statement should have said it had emerged that people want to come here and the Government would work with those who are conduit to those young people to ensure they come here and are protected.

The facts speak for themselves. In the face of an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, we have accepted very few refugees. Although we promised to take 4,000, we have accepted 500 under the resettlement programme and 69 under the relocation programme. More than 600 children have died making the crossing over the Mediterranean this year alone. In 2015, more than 1 million people, many of whom are fleeing the conflict in Syria, risked their lives in the hope of finding safety. Children make up 40% of people forcibly displaced worldwide and most of them are unaccompanied. Since 2015, 10,000 unaccompanied children have disappeared in Europe and between January and August of this year, 16,000 unaccompanied children arrived on the shores of Italy. This is not an accident or a complex set of issues. It is due to a policy on the part of the EU, which we eulogise for its free movement of labour - people were at this morning's discussion on Brexit - to implement a fortress Europe policed by FRONTEX, often with horrendous cruelty to immigrants. There is a contradiction in how we treat human beings.

Everybody is hoping we will take in this meagre 200 minors. As previous speakers said, the Government must guarantee that no minor we take in will be placed in direct provision. The system has driven people to suicide. Families live in one room on €19 per week and with no ability to cook for themselves. The system is labelled by the United Nations Human Rights Commission as a violation of human rights. Throughout Europe and Britain, we have witnessed the most shameful abuse and racist lies directed at refugees, specifically those from Islamic backgrounds, from the appalling racism of Teresa May's Government across the water to the smears and lies of the Tory Government to the state-sponsored racism in France. When history is written, it will record that when Europe faced one of the greatest humanitarian crises since the Second World War, it completely failed with indifference and hand wringing. The crisis was caused by Western powers and an imperial game played around the world. The Irish State will be complicit in it unless we begin to open our borders and let them in. This contrasts very strongly with the response of ordinary people after the death of the young Kurdish boy on the Turkish coast a year ago. Hundreds of people indicated a strong willingness to open their homes and are doing so again. We must listen to the people instead of listening to bureaucracy.

I will address the argument often heard within and outside the House, and which some Deputies referred to earlier, namely, that we need to look after our own, that we cannot look after the Irish homeless, jobless and poor. This is not a poor country. What is wrong with the country is that it is grossly unequal. Our record on accepting refugees is appalling. Our record on looking after our own is also appalling. Our health and housing crises are not due to refugees but to the inequality that lies at the heart of our economic and social model. Our Government is incapable of providing social housing for over 140,000 families. This figure has increased in the latest figures released. Funding cannot be found because there is no political will to find it. Instead, we have an ideological reliance on the free market. Refugees are not and will not be the cause of any flaws or failings in how we provide for what we call "our own". In light of this and many other crises we face in the next decade or so, we will see many more refugees and must challenge the kind of racism and indifference we have witnessed, refugees fleeing war, climate change, imperial aggression and, above all, a worldwide economic system that breeds war and inequality. This is the same system that cannot and will not look after "our own".

Refugees are our own. I, and tens of thousands of ordinary people in Ireland, have more in common with the refugees in Calais, those fleeing ISIS across Iraq or the US or Russian bombings in Syria, than we have with a small, wealthy cabal at the top of our society. Refugees do not just bring empty bellies; they bring hands, brains, ability and talent which will make our society much richer for having them. I welcome the discussion. We need to have more of this debate. At the start of the campaign, we want the Government to fulfil its commitment and acknowledge that it, too, has a responsibility to refugees today and in the future.

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