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

Solidarity to the Minister for the threats and the disturbance she and her family have suffered this week. I also express my solidarity to Deputy Paul Murphy, who also this week received death threats from the same sources.

I have read over the motion from the Rural Independent Group. It consists of nearly three pages about the migration pact and there is not a single mention of the causes of the movement of people or the reasons they move. Somebody recently described the movement of people across the planet at the moment as being like water: no matter what happens, it will find a way to go somewhere. That is exactly what is happening with migrants across the planet. Millions of them are being displaced because of climate change, which causes droughts, floods and economic catastrophe. Millions of them are being displaced because of war, famine and persecution over their personal conditions in life, whether that is their religion, their ethnicity or their sexual orientation. This is the reality of the world we live in, yet there is not one mention of that depth of cruelty and depravity taking place on the globe that is causing people to come here.

This is from a group of Deputies who uphold their Christian values constantly in this House. They are against, for example, improving abortion laws and were against repeal. In the past, they were probably against divorce. They pride themselves on being Christians. They possibly go to mass every Sunday. I do not. I am an atheist. However, I grew up valuing humanity and human beings and the people we are talking about are human beings. They are not cargo.

Even when the Minister moves to change the laws on the safe nature of Britain and the need to return migrants to Britain, she treats them as if they were cargo. All these people are capable of making a contribution to society. With every hungry belly there is a pair of hands and a brain. However, neither this Government nor the Tories want to recognise these people as human beings.

They are all looking at the elections to see what support they may use. Rishi Sunak is in real trouble in terms of the electoral possibilities for the Tory party and he is scapegoating refugees to win back voters and curry favour. There is a huge element of that happening right across this House at the moment. We need people to stand up to say that what is going on here is scaremongering, that is, scaremongering that men of colour who come to this country are a danger to women and children. That is a huge factor in why communities say they are worried and frightened. Yes, there is a shortage of resources and houses and a shortage of dentists and doctors. However, if any of you think that if we deported every single one of them in the morning the housing crisis would go away, that we would have enough dentists, doctors and crèche places, and enough room in our hospitals, then you are mad. These crises were not created by refugees or asylum seekers. They are the product of continual rule in this State dominated by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, which favour the rich and the elites and which have made this country one of the third wealthiest on the planet but ordinary people do not see the benefit of that.

For Deputies to say things like plantations, colonisations and invasions are taking place and that old and young women are fearful for their safety because of the number of asylum seeker men living near them is outrageous. It leads to dangerous behaviour, thoughts and speech by many people in this country. I will reiterate something the Minister knows well because it is also in her Department, which is that the vast majority of sexual and domestic violence is perpetrated on women in this country by men in their lives, that is, by their partners, ex-partners, relatives, husbands, etc. To put the story about that the big danger to women is men of colour is a real danger to those men of colour. It is high time that the world started to see people as a resource for one another rather than a threat to one another. I repeat that with every hungry belly is a pair of hands and a brain. We need workers in this country. One of the Deputies on this side of the House said, "We welcome workers". Well then, welcome them and let them work. That is a big part of the solution both here and in Europe.

There is much more in the European pact that we are opposed to, which is more spaces like Libya, where we create slave camps and pay countries to hold onto migrants to stop them crossing the Mediterranean and then allow them to be raped, abused and treated as slaves in camps where we are paying countries to do that. That is why we are opposed to the pact.

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