Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Tá mé buíoch go bhfuil deis agam labhairt ar an ábhar seo anocht agus é a phlé. I have raised this issue several times. I want to acknowledge that the Taoiseach and the Minister of State, Deputy McEntee, raised this issue at the highest levels in Europe but the reality is that the EU policies are continuing, which lead to human rights abuse.

This is a time when it is difficult to find a language to adequately describe the horror of the situation in Libya. There are two aspects to it, namely, what is happening in the Mediterranean and what is happening in the Libyan detention centres, the so-called reception centres. These two aspects are related. It is no exaggeration to say that these centres are on a par with the concentration camps of the Second World War.

The information I put on the record today comes directly from a medic who has worked both on the Mediterranean and in these centres and who I had the honour to meet recently. The situation was described as the highest level of human suffering that this medic has encountered. The centres are places of severe overcrowding. There are hangar-like cells with up to 3,000 detainees in each unit. There is limited and interrupted access to water. Illnesses range from TB, scabies, diarrhoea to violence-related injuries. There is evidence of beatings, burnings, torture and rape. This is happening in front of the staff and is also being done by the staff. There is acute malnutrition. Food can be a bread roll with a plate of pasta being shared by five people. As female cells are being staffed by male guards, there are extreme levels of sexual violence, rape, enforced prostitution and girls being taken from the centres and sold into brothels. Many babies are being born but there is no antenatal care. Sometimes these babies are being born to girls who are mere children themselves. This is a money-making operation as detainees can be sold at any time. The guards decide who decide who avails of triage services and are in charge of medical supplies for money. They also determine, for money, who can have access to the therapeutic food programmes. That is what faces those who are being rescued in the Mediterranean. This is what is happening there and being facilitated through Operation Sophia, in which Ireland participates.

I will now refer to the Libyan coastguards' so-called rescue operations. The coastguards are aggressive and brutal in their actions, and there are eyewitness accounts of their brutality. I was given one example where coastguards tried to capsize a boat. Another eyewitness told of everyone on a boat being beaten. Because of the behaviour of the Libyan coastguard it is now more dangerous for those trying to cross the Mediterranean. What role is Ireland and its Naval Service, through the EU, playing in the training of those coastguards?

I also have heard accounts of confrontations between the Libyan coastguards and humanitarian rescue boats. Today, it is reported that an Italian court refused to release a dedicated search and rescue boat from a German NGO that was doing genuine search and rescue in the Mediterranean. The boat had been seized and impounded by the Italian authorities in August 2017. There was an NGO boat, which performed a rescue 73 nautical miles from the Libyan coast, in international waters, but the Libyan coastguard demanded that the people be transferred, under threats of violence. That was resisted and the people were brought to a port of safety but the NGO boat and its crew were punished. The EU is criminalising humanitarian organisations which are doing search and rescue. That is creating a very dangerous precedent for the future of humanitarian operations in the Mediterranean. The EU policy is one of interception and containment. That allows the Libyan coastguard to "rescue" those in the Mediterranean and bring them to detention centres, both official and unofficial. In that rescue, families are also being separated. This is facilitated by Operation Sophia. What role has the Irish Naval Service there? How complicit is the Irish Naval Service in facilitating the Libyan coastguard in bringing people to those horrific centres? Must the Irish Naval Service stand by while that is happening? That would be completely at variance with our development aid policy.

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