Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

At least 50 million people died in the Second World War during which entire towns and cities were reduced to rubble and millions of people across Europe and elsewhere were displaced. One of the greatest mass movements of people took place in the aftermath of that conflagration, but from the ashes of that catastrophe, a new international order was built. Under the guiding hand of one remarkable woman, Eleanor Roosevelt, who chaired the United Nations Human Rights Commission, the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights was written. It has been a beacon of light and hope for oppressed peoples across the world ever since.

For 60 years national governments and non-governmental organisations have been engaged in a painstaking process of building a durable system of international law and human rights protection. That international system is far from perfect. In the area of foreign affairs we engage in diplomacy. Sometimes our ambassadors, Ministers or Deputies have to bite their tongue as they deal with rulers in oppressive regimes. However, we engage with authoritarian countries for a purpose, in the hope that over time we can bring them with us into a global system that respects human rights. While engaging in respectful diplomacy, we also criticise abuses and exert whatever pressure we can to get regimes to comply with international norms.

Despite its flaws, the United Nations' human rights system has provided guidance and moral authority in helping to bring more countries towards a stable rule of law, international co-operation and respect for human rights. Increasing numbers of countries hold genuinely democratic elections and when democracy becomes imbedded, elected governments tend to be more responsive to the needs and concerns of their peoples about human rights. Advancing human rights and international law is a long-term project. It requires optimism, a vision of a better future and a commitment to honour the principles of human rights and to play by the rules, even when the going gets tough.

Yesterday, in the 60th year since the Universal Declaration of Human Rghts was signed, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Ms Nikki Haley, called the UN Human Rights Council a “cesspool of political bias" and the United States of America withdrew from the Council. This hugely regrettable and short-sighted move provides the context for a number of policies of the current US regime. The immigration policies we see playing out along the border between the United States and Mexico are a prime example of a failure to have vision and to adhere to commitments. The commitment to protect human rights is not something to be abandoned lightly. Despite all of the setbacks in the past 60 years, one thing we have learned is that there is no alternative on offer. There is no international order other than what has been developed over time within a set of international rules and ethically based international systems.

It is sad to see some of our partner countries in the European Union erecting barriers to keep out migrants and asylum seekers, including those who are fleeing war, torture and persecution in Syria and elsewhere.

The Missing Migrants Project estimates that 3,116 people died or went missing in their attempt to reach Europe in 2017. Most of these deaths involve desperate people seeking to cross the Mediterranean Sea. When compared with the number of people who arrived in Europe, it means one person died or went missing for every 60 people who landed in Europe. These desperate people have a one in 60 chance of dying en route to Europe. In a leaky boat and on a journey for which they have borrowed money or have been charged their life savings, they have involved themselves in a game of Russian roulette in the hope of a better future.

The people fleeing to Europe are desperate. While some of them are economic migrants who are desperately anxious for a better life and some migrants may ultimately be sent home, at all times we must maintain a minimum threshold of decency. We must maintain a minimum standard of behaviour in how we treat people who take these incredibly hazardous journeys. That minimum standard is known as human rights. This is our responsibility, as Irish legislators, Europeans and human beings. For this reason, Ireland should abolish its failed system of direct provision and allow asylum seekers here to work and cook their own meals, as a basic recognition of human rights.

These human rights standards apply equally to the United States of America in how it treats its migrants. For a country whose economic dominance on the world stage is built so obviously and so significantly on the efforts of migrants, it is unconscionable that the US is breaking the most basic laws of human decency by removing children from their parents in an obscene attempt to deter people from seeking to cross the border in the first place. I cannot think of anything more obscene than a country using the threat of removing a person's children to discourage attempts to cross the border.

The US is not alone in facing the challenge of mass migration. Ireland understands that challenge all too well, both as a nation that has sent its people to the far corners of the world and as a State that has seen unprecedented levels of inward migration over the past 20 years. Ireland has benefited enormously from the contributions made by the migrant communities that have made the country their home. The United States of America has, even more demonstrably, also enjoyed those benefits. In engaging in this so-called zero tolerance policy against migrants on its southern border, the United States of America is not just creating unimaginable trauma for thousands of children and their parents, it is working against the spirit and letter of the law of internationalism that has built up over the last 60 years.

What is the alternative? Are the nations of the world to pull up the drawbridge and ignore the plight of our brothers and sisters from around the world? The Labour Party is a proud member of the Party of European Socialists and the Socialist International. We are committed to a global system that recognises the human rights of every person and works towards the fulfilment of those rights. As part of that, we recognise that many of the problems from which people are fleeing - war, drought caused by global warming and economic ruin - can be traced to the failures and inequalities of the global economic system. The solution to mass migration is not for us to fortify our borders but to work with local people to accelerate the social and economic development of all countries in line with the world's sustainable development goals and human rights norms and commitments to which Ireland is committed.

For a long time, we have heard of the need for a Marshall Plan for Africa. We have spoken of a real and genuine support base for countries that need such a plan, but it has not materialised. It must be delivered now.

For those reasons, and more, and to preserve the basic decency of the world’s human rights system, the Labour Party endorses the motion condemning the abhorrent treatment of human beings on the border of the United States of America, and we hope the policy will speedily end.

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