Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The deaths of 39 people in the back of a container truck is an horrific and unspeakable tragedy and it should bring shame on us if this country played any part in those deaths. Those people very likely passed through this country. Does the Minister of State accept that the European Union's fortress immigration policies bear some responsibility for that tragedy and for the deaths of probably close to 40,000 people over the past six or seven years in the Mediterranean and that it is time for Europe to look to itself in terms of its responsibility for the deaths of thousands of desperate people fleeing war, famine, hunger or desperate economic circumstances?

Does the Minister of State not think that Europe must now take serious pause for thought about what I believe is an absolutely immoral deal with the Turkish regime, giving it billions of euro to effectively enforce fortress Europe policies to keep desperate immigrants out and that those resources may now well be supporting the Turkish assault on the Kurds? What does the Government think of that and does the Minister of State accept that this really immoral policy should now be examined?

Does the Minister of State accept that the failure of the European Union to condemn the Spanish Government's decision to jail nine people for organising a referendum in Catalonia shows a degree of moral and democratic bankruptcy on the part of Europe, that it is willing to turn a blind eye to a staggering level of political repression of people who did nothing more than organise a referendum?

Will the Government condemn the ferocious, brutal violence of the police and so on in attacking peaceful demonstrators who have been protesting about the imprisonment of nine political leaders and who are trying to express what is a right under international law, namely, the right to peaceful self-determination?

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