Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I want to return to the question of what the EU discussed in relation to migration. I know the meeting was prior to the tragedy that happened in the Mediterranean, where at least 62 people, including a month-old baby and twin toddlers among 12 children, drowned coming from countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. We know that the accurate number of deaths recorded in the Mediterranean Sea cannot be ascertained, and that between 2014 and 2018, in a four-year period, about 12,000 people who drowned were never found. My question for the Taoiseach relates to Frontex and the role of the EU. For example, on the coast of Italy where these boats went down, the right-wing Italian Government recently passed a law preventing charities from performing life-saving rescues except one at a time. Of course, it is impossible for those charities, all of which are privatised, to operate in that strait. Frontex, the European agency for sea and rescue services, no longer has a role to play in preventing people from drowning and the EU pays over millions and millions to countries like Libya to keep people on their shores. Yet, they are still coming and they keep drowning. When is the EU going to reinstate a sea rescue operation to avoid such horrendous, inhumane and barbaric incidents as we have just witnessed off the Italian coast?

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