Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to make a brief contribution. There was a broad range of topics at the Council meeting, but it is unfortunate that the Taoiseach failed to include Turkey. He mentioned that the Minister of State will deal with that, but this is of central importance and he should have clarified what is going on with regard to Turkey. The European Council expressed concern about the targeting of political parties, human rights defenders and media, which it said represents a major setback for human rights and runs counter to Turkey's obligation to respect democracy, the rule of law and women's rights. However, it went on to refer to the EU's strategic interest in a stable and secure environment in the eastern Mediterranean and in the development of a co-operative and mutually beneficial relationship with Turkey. We see realpolitikon the ground with regard to human rights and Turkey, the EU's sixth largest trading partner.

Despite the EU's concerns about human rights, it is happy to close borders to refugees and outsource the problem to Turkey, where over 1 million Syrian refugees do not have work permits, almost 400,000 refugee children are not in school and 64% of urban Syrian households live close to or below the poverty line. I could pick any number of statistics. In fact, I understand Turkey is doing its best. My difficulty is with its human rights record and with the EU outsourcing to Turkey. We do not have a very good record ourselves. I am not complaining or giving out about Turkey. I am saying that realpolitikpushes human rights aside. We can look at Poland, Hungary and Belarus, and rightly so, but when it comes to Turkey, we close our eyes because it is so important. I make this contribution in the context of the UN Refugee Agency telling us that 82.4 million people are forcibly displaced worldwide. Of that figure, 26.4 million are refugees, 4.1 million are asylum seekers and there are 48 million internally displaced persons. My point is that we must look at what is happening and how we are developing fortress Europe by outsourcing and paying Turkey to do a job that we should be considering.

Finally, I would love to see intellectual property rights on an agenda for the EU Council, including the cost of the indemnity, the cost of the vaccine and, most importantly, openness in respect of the intellectual property right and producing a vaccine on a not-for-profit basis.

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