Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The aim of the migration pact is to create a fair and efficient asylum system, ensuring that EU member states share responsibility equitably, while also streamlining the asylum process. This is a commendable goal. What is imperative in this debate is that we have an accurate handle on the scale of migration. As of 1 January 2022, there were 23.8 million non-EU citizens residing within the European Union. This represents 5.3% of the population, with three quarters of them living in Germany, France, Spain and Italy. Of course, here in Ireland, British citizens make up by far the largest proportion of our migrant population. This counters the idea that either Ireland or the EU as a whole is overrun by migrants. However, it is important to point out that legitimate concerns about immigration are consistently labelled as racist. It can alienate moderate individuals who are genuinely trying to understand and discuss these issues. This alienation can result in them feeling misunderstood or dismissed, potentially pushing them towards far-right ideologies that appear to take their concerns seriously. It is important to address and discuss immigration issues without resorting to accusations that actually stifle open dialogue. That is why I strongly argued last week at the Business Committee and again yesterday in the House that every Member who wishes to speak, regardless of his or her opinion, should be given the opportunity to do so. Above all else, we need to have an honest debate on migration, as the public has lost confidence in our immigration system. I believe that this has not been forthcoming in the manner in which the asylum and migration management regulation, in particular, one of the five legislative files that constitute the migration pact, is being presented. The goal of the specific regulation is a worthy one, which is to assist member states facing migratory pressure. However, if we want the public to trust us as politicians regarding the migration issue, we need to be honest with them. The asylum migration management regulation is a cause of particular concern for the public. In the vast majority of emails I have received, the claims being made are that this regulation overrides our sovereignty as a country, due to the transfer of responsibility for the management of our borders, to the EU commission. This raises legitimate questions about the legality of this without a constitutional referendum. We must have absolute clarity in this particular point before we vote tonight.

It is also disingenuous to give the impression that this is a good deal for Ireland as we are just going to have to pay €13 million per year as well as taking in 648 international protection applicants. We are told that we can just buy our way out of the responsibility to take these 648 applicants. This is the defence being presented to address legitimate concerns raised about the potential liability to the State, as provided for in the solidarity-pool formula laid out in the asylum migration and management regulation. However, it must be highlighted that this is a minimum figure. These figures will be reviewed every three years and there is absolutely no doubt that this minimum threshold will be increased significantly after the first review is completed. Furthermore, these increases will be passed by a qualified majority vote at EU level, so Ireland will have to accept whatever is negotiated at that point. The reason that these figures have to increase significantly beyond the initial €13 million per year and the 648 international protection applicants, is because of the rapidly growing inward pressure on migration from regions bordering the EU.

The International Office for Migration has recorded 264,000 irregular entries into the EU by land or sea as of 27 November 2023. This compares to 150,000 in 2021, which is a 76% increase over two years. If this rate of increase in numbers was just maintained over the next three years, by 2027, Ireland will be making an annual payment of €26 million, with an annual intake of 1,140 international protection applicants. To give context to these figures, these irregular entries account for approximately 66 of every 1,000 people who migrate to the EU from other parts of the world each year. It should also be noted that the current international interpretation of the 1951 Refugee Convention does not include "climate refugees". We all know that changing weather patterns will push more people to migrate due to drought, flooding and extreme weather events.

In a 2022 European Union Agency for Asylum report on their assessment of future migration scenarios, the expert participants believed that climate-change-induced resettlement will be regulated outside of the asylum system. This means that we in Europe will have to take in vulnerable families from other parts of the world whose homes are gone as a result of climate change, and this will be in addition to whatever figure the EU Commission calculates in terms of international protection or asylum applicants.

As we can see, this is a complex tapestry of global asylum and migration challenges. Therefore, a shared European approach to these issues is crucial. Having said that, the big question for me is, does this migration pact in any way help to stop some of the more tragic stories like that of little two-year-old Syrian boy Alan Kurdi, whose body was washed up on a Turkish beach in 2015 after he drowned, along with his mother and brother while trying to reach Europe? Sadly for me, the answer is a resounding "No".

What we need is an improved migration-management system which balances border control with human rights. This system should include fast and fair asylum procedures and timely

deportations, but no matter how high we build the walls of Fortress Europe, and no matter how dangerous the waters of the Mediterranean are, people will risk everything, because they have absolutely nothing or nowhere to go back to. An effective migration policy must also provide a legal route for migrants to come to Europe. It must also invest in people and the economies of countries which are the primary source of migration, to either curb the pressure on them to leave in the first place, or ensure that they can actively contribute to our society if they do come to Europe.

As part of the migration pact, we have the EU resettlement framework, which does provide an alternative and safe access route into Europe. However, despite the growing level of demand for legal migration routes into Europe, just 14 member states have pledged to resettle refugees in 2024 and 2025, down on the 17 who made such commitments last year. Of those 14, just three will see the numbers they are taking increase, and this is despite a 76% increase in irregular entries into the EU over the two years, up to last November. The perverse structure of this migration pact means that members states will be obliged to house those who would make it to Europe to seek asylum, but there is no obligation whatsoever to help those who want to use the legal route to come into Europe. This should have been stitched into the asylum migration and management regulation, incentivising EU countries to facilitate the legal migration of refugees into Europe. Instead, this pact sets a minimum number for asylum seekers who have already made their way to Europe, which each country must take, and as I have said, is set to increase significantly in the years ahead. However, the same pact sets a maximum number of refugees who can legally come into the EU, but any country is free to set this figure at zero, which 13 member states have done for the next two years.

Finally, three quarters of the world’s refugees are hosted in low- and middle-income countries, according to the International Rescue Committee, with more than two thirds of those being hosted in countries that are facing food crises. Major refugee hosting countries include Lebanon, Jordan and the Sahel region of Africa. The EU has failed to bring about stability in many parts of these regions and sadly, in some instances, member states have contributed to the instability.

The EU is failing to adequately support the needs of the people of these regions, providing food, education, jobs and prosperity. We Irish, above all people on this planet, know that people will in the main, remain in their home country if they have any prospect of a job or a future. Again, this should have been stitched into the asylum migration and management regulation, incentivising EU countries to invest in these parts of the world, reducing the need for people to leave. Instead, we are incentivising countries to invest in asylum processing centres in North Africa and southern Europe, to process these very same migrants who have already left home and have nowhere to go.

Europe is at a crossroads. It can either move ahead with the policies of deterrence and exclusion presented in this partial migration pact, which will simply ignore the drivers of migration and force even more people to migrate onto dangerous journeys, or it can choose to lead, by example, advancing safe pathways to Europe while at the same time addressing in a very practical way the many causes of migration in the first place. Sadly, what has been presented here as the EU’s solution will not lead to fewer deaths like that of little Alan Kurdi, but in fact to the very opposite. As a result, I cannot support this proposal and the fatally-flawed asylum migration and management regulation in particular.

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