Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State tells us that 520 boats have been destroyed, up from 480 the last time we asked. Over 42,000 migrants have been rescued. What the Minister of State has not addressed is the fact that many of those ended up going back on worse or more unsafe dinghies to try to escape Libya. What the Minister of State has not said is that many of them do not get to leave and are in effect imprisoned there in unsafe detention camps. They are subject to all of the abuse outlined by Deputy Smith and others. Not everyone is taken back to official detention centres. Some are sent to what are effectively illegal warehouses or makeshift dungeons, as they have been described.

We refer to sharing surveillance. Can the Minister of State respond on that point? It is known that information from European operations is regularly shared with the Libyan coast guard enabling it to intercept boats, including some in international waters, and push them back to Libya. European forces would not undertake such actions because they are illegal. However, they are facilitating the Libyan coast guard to do it.

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