Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Along with the Syrian refugee and human rights activist, Ms Sarah Mardini, Mr. Seán Binder was arrested in 2018 and accused by Greek authorities of espionage, aiding human trafficking and belonging to a criminal organisation. Mr. Binder, whose mother lives in Togher, has spent a significant part of his life in Ireland. In 2018, he volunteered as a lifeguard with a humanitarian NGO on the Greek island of Lesbos, assisting asylum seekers arriving in small boats from the nearby Turkish coast. Mr. Binder and Ms Mardini were attempting to save lives. In his own words: "Framing the act of helping someone as either criminal or heroic, implies that it's somehow abnormal. But it isn't. Helping someone in distress is the most normal thing to do."

I wish to put this matter in context. Mr. Binder now faces up to 12 years in prison for the act of helping people. To illustrate just how awful the circumstances are at the EU's borders at the moment, we have a perhaps terrifying example from just this month where an Austrian activist on the island of Lesbos filmed 12 people – men, women, children and a baby – being taken out of a van by Greek authorities, towed out to sea and put on an inflatable raft. The authorities forced people with a six-month-old baby onto that raft and abandoned them. That group of people are now in a detention centre on the Turkish coast. This is the reality of what Mr. Binder was dealing with. It is difficult to imagine here on our perch on the north of Europe what that is like, but we help to uphold that system.

What is the Irish Government doing to help people like Mr. Binder, who has lived here, and to interrogate how the funding that we make available for migrant services in the Mediterranean is used? I have asked this question many times before. There seems to be little oversight of how Irish taxpayers' money is being used to fund action at the borders of the EU. Are we paying to have a six-month-old baby forcibly put on a dinghy? The Taoiseach has congratulated Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on his recent election, but there have not been many questions about that baby or the other 11 people. Are we providing cover and funding to a government that is not only perpetrating this crime, but also prosecuting one of our own who acted to protect those very vulnerable people? What are we doing to protect Mr. Binder and his family, who are still living here? When was the last time someone from the Department of Justice or the Department of Foreign Affairs met Mr. Binder or his family? When was the last time the Greek ambassador was called in to explain what Greece was doing in those situations at the EU border and what it was doing on the island of Lesbos? When was she called into the office of the Taoiseach or the Minister for Foreign Affairs to explain this extremely aggressive prosecution of human rights activists and the recent uncovering of inhumane and dangerous treatment of migrants at Greece's border? When is the Minister doing to reach out to Mr. Binder and how we are holding the Greek Government to account?

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