Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am opposed to a full opt-in to this pact because there are so many aspects of it that are not in Ireland's interests. The all-or-nothing approach taken by the Government is reckless, unnecessary and mystifying. Why did the Government not look at this pact and decide to opt out of what is not good for us? Why is it not the Government's automatic reaction to put Ireland's interests over the EU's institutional neoliberal interest? This is the same EU institution that gives its full support to the massacre of the Palestinian people. That alone is a red flag and that alone should make the Government determined not to cede our sovereign power on immigration to a neoliberal EU, an EU increasingly removed from the decency and goodness of its people, evidenced by protests against the war crimes and crimes against humanity it is supporting in Gaza.

In this uncertain political world where good is bad and bad is evil, it is vital that Ireland retains its sovereignty over asylum and immigration because nobody knows what is coming down the line. We have a duty to our people to make sure immigration is in our hands and not in those of Ursula von der Leyen or her EPP cronies coming after her. All in Fine Gael and the EPP gave succour and cover to the far right, refusing to tackle it because it was not affecting their vote. Party first, citizens a very poor second. The centre right legitimises the far right and today, we have the front page of the Financial Times saying that big business is courting Marine Le Pen to keep out a left government in France. What does that tell you about the interest of business in democracy? It says give us Le Pen, not decent wages or equality for our ordinary workers.

Thanks to a long, cynical silence, vigilantes are accosting migrants across our country. They are cruising in our towns and cities abusing gardaí. Immigration locations are being set fire to, and roadblocks and identity checks are being set up. A Croatian man, Josip Strok, has been killed. We have an elected councillor in Kildare telling us he wants Irish women to breed more. Ireland is full one week, and the next week he wants, in his words, "indigenous... women" breeding more. Beef to the heels, the lot of us.

These people start with women's rights and status, and then they come for members of your family who are gay. Next they will come for members of your family who are disabled. That is the playbook of the far right's useful idiots, and that is what they are playing. That is what this Government has turned a blind eye to. We need a vastly different and better system of immigration that is tightly managed and regulated, one that is compassionate and that protects people seeking refuge from war, famine, persecution and human rights abuses. They should not be vying for services with people who have been generationally neglected by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, people who are really hurting. They are people I see every day in my clinics, and I read their pain in my emails. They are suffering because of this Government's brazen recklessness.

I want better for all our people. I do not want Ireland cowed by thugs who would give their eye teeth to behave like the fascist squads of old. The Minister must do her duty and stop this lunacy of blanket opt-in. The Government must look after our people, our refugees and immigrants who have come to contribute to life in Ireland, and make all of us its priority, not the demands of the EPP and Commissioner von der Leyen.

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