Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Eurojust co-ordinates investigations and prosecutions of serious cross-border crime in Europe and beyond, including, among others, genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, collectively referred to as core international crimes. These are crimes Eurojust is competent to deal with. There are reasonable grounds to believe war crimes and crimes against humanity have been and are being committed in Ukraine. We all see, day and night, across our computer screens, our televisions, our newspapers and our phones the reality of these war crimes.

However, as a country, we need to be more careful about how we treat refugees. Initially, we had no plan for bringing thousands of people into our country. We are now putting them into already overcrowded areas. I said at the start of this crisis that community buildings should have been used to help. I still believe that. Why not bring some of the Ukrainian refugees to rural parts where we need more people? Unfortunately, many of these places are already underpopulated and we would very much welcome refugees to them. We also need more services in these areas, for example, transport.

The proposal outlined in this motion will allow Eurojust to collect, analyse and preserve evidence relating to core international crimes and to process data, such as videos, audio recordings and satellite images, and share such evidence with the relevant national and international authorities, including the International Criminal Court. The sharing of such evidence would only take place when appropriate and with full respect to EU data protection rules. There must be a judgment day for the war crimes being committed. Evidence is surely one way to have the people responsible held to justice whenever that day will come.

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