Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Okay. That is the first scenario. The Minister of State is saying it is possible that a fishing boat would be charged but it will depend on the circumstances. I had a more specific point. If people are being smuggled, they cannot be charged with smuggling themselves, clearly, because they are victims and they are being smuggled by these people who smuggle people in, subject them to appalling risk, take their money and, in many instances, have no regard whatsoever for human life. I am hoping the Minister of State will say “No” to this question. If a person is being smuggled and a boat starts to go down, and that person saves somebody else and gets to shore, that person knows he or she has helped somebody to illegally enter the country. Such people know they have met all of the criteria for the offence, or the hurdles the Minister of State has described to me. They know they are entering the country illegally. The vast majority of people who enter the Irish State, or France or England - we can take our pick of states - know they are doing it illegally but they are just desperate people. They know it is illegal to enter the State but they save somebody else and bring that person to shore. Is there an exemption in law for persons in those circumstances not to be charged, or are they charged?

For example, would I have to say that I knew I was going to enter the country illegally and that that was the plan? Of course, I was doing it to support my family and get a better life, but that was the plan, and I knew everybody else in the boat was too. The fact I saved one of them means I can be charged with people smuggling but if I just let them drown, I cannot. Is that a correct understanding of this – not that people would be convicted but that they can be charged? I find the idea problematic that somebody can be charged for saving a human life.

The Minister of State says the old system did not work because people smugglers were not successfully prosecuted in Ireland but, under the new system, is a people smuggler not better off letting people drown or die in the back of a lorry? Are they not better off to let them die than bring them safely ashore? If that is the case, and I am asking if it is the case, then I would have to question the morality of the Bill.

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