Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute on this very important debate on the asylum and migration pact. From a country with a population of more than 5 million, I know how many people we have who claim Irish descent right across the world. There are approximately 70 million people around the globe. That is so much a part of our story and what it means to be Irish and the shared experiences many families went through. As a former Minister for European affairs travelling around Europe, I also know about the weaponisation of very vulnerable people that we have experienced over the past number of years. We have so many catastrophic events going on around the globe, from the legal invasion of Russia in Ukraine, to the Middle East, to Africa, to huge seismic events after which very vulnerable people are being weaponised and coming to our shores. Those are very complex problems that require a very strong, common solution with the 27 European countries - all our partners - working together to solve the problem. That is the critical point I make to the House this evening. We need to work together to solve this very complex problem.

According to our own figures in terms of the scale of the problem, in an eight-year period between 2013 and 2021, approximately 23,000 people claimed asylum in our country. From 2022 to date, that figure has been in excess of 35,000. The scale of the problem has increased significantly as a direct response to the challenges on the uncertain global landscape I referenced at the start of my contribution. How we tackle that problem will define our country, and indeed, Europe, into the future. We need to tackle it with compassion in the first instance but, second, in a fair and rules-based manner. When we look and hear many people making contributions suggesting that we opt out, opting out is the solution. It is like flicking a switch. It is a very simplistic message with no detail of how we put that into operation. What is the methodology to deliver that? We have seen a blueprint for opting out before. It was Brexit. We saw the campaign for Brexit and Nigel Farage standing in front of a group of Syrian refugees and saying that if they voted for Brexit and if the UK left the European Union, the problem would almost go away. We know factually that the problem worsened.

I recall meeting Michel Barnier in Paris and pointing out these were the most misleading posters of the campaign for the UK to exit the EU. Yet, so many people bought into the campaign thinking it would resolve the problem but it did not. What did opting out get the United Kingdom? It has embarked on a position of the Rwanda policy on which it has spent £500,000 and yet the only people to go to Rwanda were ministers. Vulnerable people are claiming asylum in the UK from Rwanda as we speak. That is the irrational policy that opting out gives a country. There is no structure. It is ill-thought-out and with no planning behind it. When I hear Opposition Members suggesting we opt out, I do not hear any detail behind it. How would they resolve to challenge this very complex problem? I also saw something when we look at the spectrum from right to left. A total of 7,000 vulnerable people arrived in the space of 48 hours on the Lampedusa, an island just off Italy, which doubled its population. There is a right-wing administration in situ there, yet the problem did not go away. The challenge has been greater. That is why we really have to work together in a compassionate but fair and rules-based way to try to resolve these very complex problems. This pact gives us the opportunity to do that. When people want our country to opt out of an integrated system, what they are saying is that people who arrive here from many destinations from which there are no direct flights into our country, that we will have no capacity whatsoever to deport them under the old Dublin III regulation to the European Union if they have already claimed asylum or landed in another country. We will not have the data or the intelligence to be able to ascertain that, again putting our country at a huge disadvantage. We know the Dublin III regulation has not worked. It will be repealed through the membership of the asylum and migration pact. When that happens, our country will be in a very vulnerable position because our mechanism will be wiped away as to how we would respond to that challenge. Again, I hear no one setting out how we are meant to resolve to get the data and to know where to send people who have claimed asylum or who have spent time in other countries within the European Union context. That is a second big hole in the Opposition's response and saying we should just opt out. We need to be connected. We need the information and the mechanism. Even if we look at the wording at the moment, we are asking people, requesting European partners because of the variance in regulation around Europe, to take back citizens from other countries. Under the asylum migration pact, it will be a notification. It is a totally changed landscape. It is more coherent and what we need to tackle a very challenging problem.

The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment issued approximately 31,000 permits last year and this year many sectors are crying out for more people to come into our economy to work and to hold up the vital sectors we have that need labour. These provide services our citizens depend on every single day. In fact, it is not even arguable to say our economy would collapse if we did not have inward migration to keep those public services working and delivering for our citizens every day. We should never lose sight of that because in a fair, rules-based system there are mechanisms where people can come in, work, contribute to our society and our economy and share in our prosperity. We also have to look after people who come from a very vulnerable background such as those who are under attack and who are fleeing persecution. We have to have a mechanism to ascertain and adjudicate on their right to be in our State and that is what the asylum and migration pact gives us. It gives us the mechanism to be able to do just that in a clear structured way. What I hear from the Opposition is that there is no plan, no structure and it is all airy-fairy. That is exactly what landed the UK where it is in respect of Brexit. There is no distinct policy and, as I said, no tiered structure. We have to be very careful that when we are talking to the Irish people to acknowledge this is a problem that is going to be permanently on the landscape of our country into the future. It will be permanently at Europe's door into the future and we have to try our best to resolve it in a compassionate way. However, we have to send back to citizens in our country the message about how we are going to respond.

It is very easy to use the famous words opt out, flick the switch, everything is good when we know that is not the case because the mechanism is gone and it is very difficult then to respond.

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