Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I note that the Taoiseach spoke about the European Union standing firm against hatred and violent extremism and mentioned that he would fight the spread of radicalism. That is very much in tune with some of the very interesting rhetoric coming from him and the Minister, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, in particular.

There appears to be a move from the pragmatic approach which veiled any obvious ideological prejudice under the former Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny - not that it did not exist but it was veiled - to a much more gung-ho, ideological leadership for Fine Gael in the form of this Taoiseach and the Minister, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, with all the talk of attacking the populists as against the sensible, moderate people whom apparently they represent and associate with in Europe. It is good that they are framing things in that way. At least, it is a political debate. However, it is completely topsy-turvy in terms of who are the extremists and who are the reasonable people.

The left believes in human beings, internationalism, solidarity across borders and compassion for human beings. That is not an extremist position, but a moderate, sensible, human one. I contrast that with the position of some of the Taoiseach's mates in Europe. Robert Fico, the Prime Minister of Slovakia, who is one of the Taoiseach's colleagues on the European Council, has said that Islam has no place in Slovakia and that it is a necessity to monitor every Muslim. The Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, is a member of the European People's Party, of which Fine Gael is a part. He thinks migrants are "poison", every migrant is a terror risk and every refugee policy is a Trojan Horse of terrorism. He is already responsible for building a fence against migrants and he wants to build another, just like Mr. Donald Trump. What does the Taoiseach have to say about an association in the European People's Party with people who have those types of extremist views? The Bulgarian Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, warns about the Muslim threat to the Christian demographic balance of Europe. This is foul, extremist, racist hate-mongering and I wish to hear denunciations and serious challenge to such hate-mongering from the Taoiseach and the Government.

I also seek some criticism of the European Union's fortress Europe policy. This has resulted in 16,000 deaths in the Mediterranean since 2014, a miserable 3,000 Syrian refugees taken in by the European Union, as opposed to the 2.8 million who have fled that country and are now held up in Turkey, and the deal the European Union did with the Turkish regime, which is an extremist regime, to keep migrants out of Europe. It also did deals with Libya and Afghanistan, extremist regimes by any definition. The European Union is lining up with them at the expense of human compassion and decency when it comes to people fleeing from the most desperate circumstances.

I will conclude with a comment on the austerity extremism of the European Union. I read an article today in which a Greek woman named Dimitra says that she never imagined a life of being reduced to food handouts, "some rice, two packs of pasta, a packet of chickpeas, some dates and a tin of milk for the month". That is against a background of deprivation in Greece that has now shot up to 22%. There were 2,500 people in receipt of food aid in Athens in 2012. It is now 26,000. This is because Europe will not give Greece a break on its debt. Could we have some criticism of that type of economic and racist extremism emanating from the so-called moderate centre of Europe?

See this speech in context