Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

People should look at what is happening at the borders of Greece right now. It is utterly horrifying and shameful. Of all of the disgusting things the EU has endorsed in the past decades, this has to be one of the worst. Dinghies of frozen refugees coming from a war-torn country are being turned away by a European coastguard. As tens of thousands of refugees from Syria, including mothers and children, approach barbed wire fences, they are being shot at by a EU police force - the Greek police force - and being hit by rubber bullets and tear gas to force them away from entry into the EU. Gangs of far-right activists are attacking and marauding through refugee camps in Greece. At least two people so far have been killed while trying to reach Greece, including a young child in a capsized boat. All of that has been endorsed by the EU with the language of saying that Greece is playing Europe's shield, according to the Commission's President, and promising Greece more money and more support to bolster border security. It is utterly disgusting and gives the lie to any imagined EU that is a paragon of democracy and human rights. This is the EU that exists today: a deeply racist, anti-democratic project built on the militarised borders of fortress Europe. These are the real human consequences as a result of it.

The Government should distance itself. It should criticise the approach of the EU. It should do that immediately and speak out about it. The vast majority of ordinary people in Europe would find von der Leyen's comments about Greece being Europe's shield repulsive. We should be distanced from that approach. The Government should also call on the EU to refuse to endorse the Greek proposal to suspend the right of asylum. There is no basis whatsoever to do that under international law. The UN has said that. The right of asylum is now being suspended for a month because the Greek Government has said so. Instead of being endorsed by the EU, that should be condemned by it. The immediate cause of this is decisions for its own purposes by the right-wing Turkish Government. As Deputy Boyd Barrett mentioned, it has its roots in past decisions of a right-wing, racist character by the EU, most fundamentally the decision repeatedly to outsource European borders and to outsource to other countries the human rights abuses that are required to keep refugees that are fleeing wars and conflict situations, fuelled by western imperialism. In this case the outsourcing was to Turkey in 2016 in a disgusting, dodgy deal worth €6 billion for the Turkish state at the expense of human rights abuses for those who faced it. That is only one of many deals that have been done with authoritarian regimes and dictatorships, etc. It is also in line with the decision to stop search and rescue missions by NGOs, including Médecins Sans Frontières, in line with the vote of Fine Gael MEPs to back that up, supposedly because of not wanting the operations of Frontex to be exposed. We need an entirely different approach instead of the militarised border security approach of Frontex.

Frontex needs to be abolished and all of the money relating to it should be invested in search-and-rescue missions. The borders need to be opened to allow Syrian and other refugees into the EU. We need to restore the running of Mediterranean humanitarian rescue operations to member states. The Irish Naval Service should be put at the disposal of the service. The left and the workers' movement need to be to the fore on this issue. If we are not to the fore in demanding both the rights of the refugees and the resources necessary to ensure adequate homes, jobs and services for everybody — there is enough wealth in the EU to achieve this — the far right will certainly be seeking, as in Greece, to divide the poor and very poor and to divert attention from the wealth and resources that exist in society and from those responsible for the crises faced by working-class people.

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