Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Brexit is clearly a priority issue for Ireland but there are other important things to be discussed at the European Council meeting. Two of the key issues at the Council meeting will be spending on defence, which we believe will lead to the creation of a standing EU army, and migration. I believe the EU's priorities are all wrong. The EU says it has no spare money for positive social and economic programmes such as youth unemployment projects and community regeneration or improving public services like health care, but it has announced that it will spend €1.5 billion a year on regressive military projects. People are aware of the need to improve domestic security considering the recent attacks in Brussels, Paris, London and Manchester, but the creation of this external force is an extra financial burden which is not wanted by anyone. Indeed, the Taoiseach is signing off on this €1.5 billion while a large proportion of our own Defence Forces members are reliant on lousy wages and social welfare top-ups, and in many cases are living in substandard accommodation.

The European Commission's reflection paper on the future of European defence, launched on Wednesday, 7 June, clearly outlines its plans to establish a standing EU army. I want to see Irish taxpayers' money being spent on health care services and ending the trolley crisis, making education more accessible, creating good quality jobs in urban and rural areas and on housing, not on developing and investing in a standing EU army which is able to intervene militarily and conduct war. Any EU policy which aims to increase EU militarisation is a potential threat to Irish neutrality. What is the Taoiseach going to do to oppose these plans and protect Irish neutrality? What is the Irish position on the spending of €1.5 billion on military projects?

Yesterday was world refugee day. On Monday the International Organization for Migration confirmed that more than 120 people, mainly Sudanese, had died in a shipwreck off the Libyan coast last weekend. It also confirmed that 77,000 people have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe this year, with at least 1,828 people having died. The preventable deaths of men, women and children in the Mediterranean are unacceptable and a stain on the EU and its member states. We must do more to stop these people dying in the Mediterranean.

According to reports on the leaked draft conclusions of the meeting which the Taoiseach will attend, EU leaders are expected to pile on pressure to get countries in Africa to start accepting

citizens who have been ordered to leave the EU. Many of them may face torture and violations of human rights, as we are hearing from the various agencies working with these people. It is also reported that the conclusions will include the training of the Libyan naval coast guard as a measure to prevent people from leaving the coast towards Italy. The Libyan coast guard has already returned an estimated 23,000 people since 2016. However those stopped are then taken to any number of detention centres, where they are likely to face abuse and exploitation. I have seen the NGO reports, read personal stories and seen photo evidence of the appalling conditions in these so-called migrant centres. The centres do not meet any humane standard at all; in fact, we have laws that would not allow anyone to keep an animal in such conditions. Hundreds of people are cramped into overcrowded and unhygienic cells, with no contact with the outside world, by what are essentially armed militias. What is happening is wrong but we will be facilitating it. How can the Taoiseach and his colleagues stand over a system where vulnerable refugees are rescued from drowning and then returned to Libya and left in appalling conditions?

I am also calling on the Taoiseach to oppose the so-called migration compacts with five African states - Nigeria, Niger, Senegal, Ethiopia, and Mali - which tie EU aid and trade to stemming flows of refugees. These are shoddy deals; they are wrong and counterproductive. Finally, I am calling on the Taoiseach to raise with his Hungarian, Czech, Polish, and Slovakian counterparts their unhelpful and unacceptable boycotting of agreed EU resettlement and relocation quotas. I heard the Taoiseach earlier quoting John F. Kennedy. I agree it is time for countries like Ireland to stand up and make our voice heard, not only in Europe but across the world.

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