Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Operation Pontus, the search and rescue mission, was established as a humanitarian mission with the primary focus being on saving lives. Wonderful work was done and almost 16,000 lives were saved in the Mediterranean. The recent Dáil motion to bring Operation Pontus within the remit of Operation Sophia was a terrible development. The day before the motion was considered, a House of Lords inquiry in the United Kingdom concluded that Operation Sophia had failed in its mandate to disrupt the business people who were smuggling in the Mediterranean and had resulted in more deaths at sea of refugees and migrants. We raised this issue before the vote, but nevertheless so many in the Chamber voted in favour of the motion. How can we stand over it, given that we were doing such good work before?

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