Mairéad Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This is an important pact for us to make a decision on, and it is my view the Dáil should vote against the Government's decision to fully opt us into this pact. As a result of that I will be voting "Níl". It is often that we hear from Ministers that they cannot do X or Y because of some EU regulation, and it is out of the hands of the Ministers and Government and their hands are tied. Here they are choosing for their hands to be tied and to lose any room for manoeuvre. Here we have a pact we can opt out of. We are in a unique position in our ability to do this, yet instead the Government is taking an all or nothing approach on this. This makes no sense at all to me.

We have all been knocking doors over the past months. The first thing people will say when they talk about immigration is that their hearts go out to the people fleeing war. We need to recognise the causes of immigration and the role the west plays in this. We need to talk about the role the west plays in wars and in climate change, which force people to leave their homelands. We need to recognise the role we play in these wars through the continued use of Shannon Airport. Wars leave destruction around the world, and we must be strong advocates for peace. We must use our military neutrality to work towards peace. We must also be strong in Europe on this issue. We are seeing an increasing militarisation of the EU. Ursula von der Leyen is on record as saying that it is her intention to transform the European Union into a geopolitical bloc, and as part of the next Commission, she wishes to establish an EU defence Commissioner and an EU rapid reaction force, which is an army by another name. She wants to massively increase investment into the European arms industrial complex. Increasing militarisation and increasing wars lead to more migration and the displacement of more people. We must be a voice for peace and the EU must go back to its fundamentals, which were born out of the horrors of two world wars. Even in research at third level, the distinction between civil and military research is being eroded. There is now the new term of dual-use research. That is bad for Ireland in many ways but could also impact our access to funding in the future.

This is also a question of sovereignty. We should be able to make decisions here through a government elected by the people and held accountable by them. We are in a unique position in this State in that we do share a common travel area with Britain, and we should keep flexibility to make changes here when we need to. I also have serious concerns about the EU's policies and attitudes to migration. Many human rights organisations have raised serious concerns about this pact. We have to look at the number of people who have drowned in the Mediterranean. Between 2014 and 2019, more than 19,000 people drowned there. In 2012, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that refugees could not be returned to Libya by European boats because it would endanger the lives of the people. We know now that the EU managed to circumvent this by training the Libyan Coast Guard, which does interceptions, and brings people back to what can only be described as the largest human market in the world. We should not be holding the EU up as a beacon of human rights and humanity on this issue. As the Minister, Deputy McEntee, said, it took the EU many years to agree on this pact. If there are issues with this pact, my concern is it will take many years to fix them too. Sometimes we do not need a one-size-fits-all approach and model. We have a right to decide our own approach, and I believe it is our responsibility to exercise that right if we feel it is in our own best interests.

Agus cúpla soicind fágtha agam, tá mé ag iarraidh é seo a rá arís i nGaeilge.

Tá sé fíorthábhachtach nuair atáimid ag plé na cúrsaí seo go mbreathnaímid freisin ar na cúinsí ina dtarlaíonn sé go gcaithfidh daoine a dtíortha féin a fhágáil. Caithfimid a bheith ionraic faoi seo gur minic nach bhfuil daoine ag iarraidh a gcuid teaghlaigh féin a fhágáil ach mar gheall ar chúrsaí cogaidh, nach bhfuil cinneadh ar bith eile acu agus go mbíonn orthu fágáil. Caithfimid breathnú air seo agus a chinntiú mar thír go n-úsáidimid an guth láidir atá againn san Aontas Eorpach chun chuile shórt a dhéanamh chun stop a chur le cogaidh. Tá mé buartha go bhfuil an tAontas Eorpach ag dul i dtreo atá ag breathnú ar chúrsaí míleata i bhfad níos mó agus gur chóir dúinn stop a chur leis sin.

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