Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Labour Party is entirely supportive of the efforts made by our naval vessels in the Mediterranean which have saved more than 15,000 lives. They have every reason to be proud of their work and we have every reason to be proud of the work done by our navy in rescuing migrants, in many cases from the prospect of a harrowing death in the Mediterranean Sea. We hope that the work of our troops will remain focussed on saving lives in this region.

The values of Operation Sophia are noble. To put an end to human trafficking and smuggling is an ambition to which we all aspire. To search for, divert, or dispose of the assets of people involved in such activities is a noble aspiration. That said, real concerns have been raised about Irish participation in this mission. Operation Pontus was established as a humanitarian mission with its primary focus on saving lives. Operation Sophia was established on entirely different premises, as a military operation with the mission "to identify, capture and dispose of vessels" used by smugglers or traffickers to "disrupt the business model of human smuggling and trafficking networks in the Southern Central Mediterranean". There must be some concern about the risk to Irish naval personnel involved in that endeavour. One such concern surrounds the expansion of this mission to contribute to the implementation of the UN arms embargo. We should also be concerned about a diversion of resources from the prime task of saving lives, which should be the sole motivation for the despatch of our very scarce resources - we have only eight vessels - to the Mediterranean Sea.

Serious concerns regarding this mission have been raised in the House of Lords in a report published yesterday and which the Minister of State, Deputy Kehoe, mentioned last night. Many of these concerns are shared by the Immigrant Council of Ireland, the Irish Refugee Council and by Médecins Sans Frontières. The importance of the assessment by the House of Lords is not just that it is not working but that it is contributing to more people dying by diverting resources from the primary task of simply picking up people who otherwise would drown. The House of Lords report suggests that an unintended consequence of Operation Sophia's policy of destroying smugglers' boats has been that the smugglers have instead adapted and sent refugees to sea in any unseaworthy vessel that comes to hand. The House of Lords has determined that this has exacerbated the mortality levels. The statistics bear out this view. In 2016, there were more than 4,500 unfortunate deaths compared with fewer than 3,200 the previous year, any one of which is an appalling tragedy. These figures alone surely deserve deep consideration by the Members of this House.

We have also heard concerns from Médecins Sans Frontières about the aspect of the mission that involves the training of the Libyan coastguard and navy. I hope the Minister of State can focus on these and assure all of us parties that our armed forces will play no role in supporting efforts to return refugees and migrants to Libyan detention centres. Deputy Ó Snodaigh referred to this. The accounts I have read of the so-called detention centres in Libya are harrowing. They are among the most awful places that any human beings are confined. The notion that our armed forces would in any way contribute to sending people back to Libya to enter those conditions would be deeply worrying for every Member of this House and certainly something that very few, if any, Members could contemplate supporting.

While in Libya, thousands of refugees and migrants have been subjected to extreme, even unimaginable, levels of violence. We should not play any role in returning fleeing migrants to detention in what by any evaluation is a failed state with a multiplicity of factions declaring themselves to be the legitimate government.

On this point we need the Minister of State's assurance that the Irish navy, if those of us on this side of the House fail to win the vote, will play no part in training Libyan troops in a way that could lead to the mistreatment and torture of refugees and migrants. I raised this matter on the Order of Business earlier in the week, because I fundamentally disagree with the way this matter is being dealt with in this Dáil. The motion we are being asked to agree to is a paragraph long. There is no detail on whether the Irish Government is aware of any of the concerns I have detailed, and that other Members have detailed and will detail, or whether it has taken them on board and considered them before deciding to present this Dáil with this motion. There were no background briefing papers or notes provided to Deputies. There was no reference to a committee of the House where these matters could be teased out and, if necessary, evidence called from our naval authorities, the United Nations, Médecins Sans Frontières and the other human rights organisations which have expressed concerns.

The motion was published on Tuesday and today we are supposed to just nod it through. I do not think that is an acceptable way to do business. I was very concerned last weekend when this matter surfaced in the media for the first time because it was indicated that a proposal would go to Government on Tuesday and be rubber-stamped here on Tuesday or Wednesday. This is a fundamental issue that we should take our time in considering. We should know all the arguments for and against before being asked to vote. That is why I strongly support the amendment tabled by the Sinn Féin Deputies to refer this to a committee. Bluntly, the argument in favour of the amendment was bolstered immeasurably by the intervention of the Chief Whip this morning because in responding to the question why the urgency, he made the case that it is urgent because the existing mandate is about to expire. Why in God's name would we want to get in during the last weeks of an operation that we have not been involved in for years, that would require incredible training and preparation in any event and is in the dying days or weeks of its mandate? That is very odd.

The Minister of State will recall that we agreed unanimously in Cabinet to deploy a naval vessel to the Mediterranean exclusively on a humanitarian mission. Operation Sophia existed at that time but there was no suggestion that we join it, and there would not have been support for the suggestion. Why should we join now, at the end of the mandated Operation Sophia mission, when there was not only widespread but uniform national pride in, and support for, our Naval Service's operations to date in the Mediterranean, which have been exclusively focused on humanitarian need and rescuing people from imminent death? Why would we at this stage want to alter it and why would we do so without the proper scrutiny of an Oireachtas committee? If we were going to make any decision on the most mundane of issues as a matter of routine, we would refer it for detailed scrutiny to a committee of the House which can adduce all the evidence, call any witnesses and make a recommendation having debated the matter in the round.

This motion is a few sentences, supported by Cabinet and then bounced in here. Deputies were originally given only 40 minutes to pass it without any background papers or supporting argument. This is not the way to do business of this importance. I urge Members to support the amendment tabled in the name of Sinn Féin Deputies to give us the time, the space and the information with which to make the right decision.

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