Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is heartbreaking to see people in this country use those who are in an extremely vulnerable position as a political talking point, as if stances regarding migration are merely a matter of opinion and not a matter of human rights and a matter of right and wrong. We cannot stand here and debate whether people have a right to live, a right to safety, a right to a life other than the one many have been so unfairly dealt. We can never know what it is like for people to wake in a war-torn country, anxious and afraid, living day-to-day because they have no idea what their future looks like, where their next meal will come from or whether they and their family will live to see the day through.

I know there has been much interest in this debate and potentially many people watching and so I want to appeal to people’s humanity. I know there is much to be discussed and figured out when it comes to migration and I agree that the Government has handled this terribly in recent years. However, we must not look past the human beings at the centre of this or blame them in any way for the difficult and devastating lives that many have been forced to live. I understand that people feel angry and possibly protective, but we cannot let this feeling override logic or worse, our humanity.

Many migrating to this country share the same fears as those who are wary of their arrival. They too are feeling fearful and protective of their families. This is what has driven them to leave in the first place. We all share the same emotions and the same fears. We too can share the same hopes and the same goals but only if we allow it and only if we do not let fear and hate divide us.

I cannot even begin to imagine the situation that so many migrants have had to face before coming here, weighing up the dangers of staying and the dangers of leaving, having to make a choice for themselves and their children, deciding to travel into the unknown, hoping and praying that they will survive and that the kindness of strangers will allow them and their family the opportunity of a better life. We have the ability to give so many people a better life here. This world is unjust in so many ways but we are in the position to make it fairer, to right some of its wrongs.

Unfortunately however, this EU migration pact will not make things fairer in any way, which is why I am opposing it. The pact will have devastating implications for people's right to international protection. It will allow for human rights abuses across Europe, including racial profiling and de facto detention. I am particularly concerned about the pact’s expansion of biometric data gathering from migrants. It is for this reason that I will be voting against this motion. The pact goes too far in limiting the rights of those seeking protection. The choices of asylum seekers are already limited and this pact threatens their basic human rights even further by introducing fewer safeguards, increased detention and destitution among people seeking protection.

I believe the committee was deliberately stifled in being able to have public hearings on the pact. We were curtailed because the Government intended to introduce this two weeks before the European elections, which it failed to do. We ended up only having one hearing, which was wrong.

More than 160 organisations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have expressed concern regarding this pact, which seeks to fingerprint children as young as seven. The profiling of minors, of seven-year-olds, should not be condoned in any way, never mind legislated for. This pact will have detrimental consequences for the rights and well-being of children seeking protection. I find the arguments of those speaking against this motion for other reasons to be unreasonable, inhumane and extremely hypocritical. Many would be horrified at the thought of being profiled in this way. Despite strong opinions about rights to privacy and freedom, many do not seem to extend these rights to others.

The EU should not be making it harder to seek protection when we are already offering so little. The EU’s share of the world’s refugee population has decreased from 70% in 1993 to under 20% since 2018. We are contributing less and less and getting increasingly stricter. On top of this, we are also completely failing to address the root causes of migration. Europe has become so fixated on restricting migrants, that it fails to recognise or even attempt to address why migration is occurring in the first place.

I listened to Government speakers earlier argue in favour of this pact and I do not think any of those arguments stand up. This pact is about stopping people from coming and stopping people getting here. It is about conflicts that we, in Europe, have contributed to. Europe destroyed Libya. Most of the migrants now come from Libya and Europe is actually paying warlords in Libya to house migrants it returns there. It is an absolute disgrace and we should be ashamed at how Europe is treating the migrants. The EU has failed to address conflicts, persecutions and large-scale human rights violations. It has failed time and time again to respond to the adverse effects of climate change, natural disasters and other environmental issues, many of which Europe caused or contributed heavily to. Now we are going to adopt this, which is wrong.

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