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

Budgets from this country and across Europe are being used to fund a regime that has been described as holding migrants in militia camps in the most dreadful conditions. As stated previously, we are witnessing the return of slavery, with people being bought and sold at markets in Libya. These are human beings who are desperately fleeing war and poverty in other countries.

The Department is involved in training the Libyan navy and coast guard in rescuing migrants. I am proud of the record of the Naval Service in rescuing tens of thousands of migrants from the Mediterranean. However, these migrants are then handed back to the same regime that Human Rights Watch has shown to be guilty of the torture, rape, brutality and enslavement of a large number of human beings. Almost 1 million migrants are being contained in Libya. The treatment they are receiving is driving them out of the country, yet we are funding a programme under which the Naval Service provides training and migrants are handed back to the same authorities that brutalised them. While we have pride in our Naval Service, we must also be ashamed of the operation in which we are participating because it is returning migrants to brutal regimes.

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