Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

If the Minister of State is serious about tackling the root causes then he might start by stopping facilitating the bombing of the countries in the first place.

Smoke and mirrors have been used to obscure what Operation Sophia is and the Minister of State has tried to do that here today. Operation Sophia is a military mission. I am not saying that: that is what the Council decision which established it says, namely that "The Union shall conduct a military crisis management operation". The Defence Forces 2017 annual report says "In July 2017, Government and Dáil approval was secured for the redeployment of Naval Service vessels from primarily humanitarian search and rescue operations, to primarily security and interception operations". It is not to save migrants from drowning or because we have a particular expertise. Recently, we submitted a freedom of information request to the Department of Defence which confirmed to us that none of those considerations formed the backdrop of the decision to participate in Operation Sophia. In fact, it is part of the Government's drip-drip participation into involvement in permanent structured co-operation, PESCO, and a future European army.

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