Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 13:

In page 11, between lines 21 and 22, to insert the following: "Protection of smuggled persons from prosecution

10.A person who has been the object of people smuggling shall not be considered to have committed an offence under any provision of this Act.".

These amendments relate to the protection of persons who are the object of smuggling. I have tried in previous amendments to address a specific jeopardy under section 8 in terms of the documentation. That might not even be necessary if we had this very clear caveat regarding persons who are the object of people smuggling. The Minister of State indicated in his Second Stage speech that it is very clearly not his intention that such persons should be prosecuted. We have spoken about the dangers of smuggled persons being subject to prosecution. These are catch-all clauses that seek to ensure the wrong persons are not prosecuted and we do not create a further trauma and difficulty for those who have been smuggled. I have phrased the provision in two different ways, both referring to "the object of people smuggling", but I am open to different phrasings.

In July this year, there was a case where fishermen in the Mediterranean pulled the bodies of 18 people from the sea, including people from Nigeria, Ghana and The Gambia.There were 57 other people on that boat who are still missing and presumed dead. The fact is that all these people were taking these very treacherous and dangerous journeys because the situations they were leaving were sufficiently desperate and dangerous. We know we are going to see more people travelling from places where we see conflict. We are now seeing people coming from Eritrea and Ethiopia. We will see people fleeing Afghanistan. It was a really regrettable moment that one of the first responses by the European ministers of the interior, after their meeting on what we saw unfolding in Afghanistan, was a collective statement that they wanted to be assured that there would not be any illegal entries and that they wanted to avoid another migrant crisis.

I said on Second Stage that these are humanitarian crises. These are crises of war. The migrant crisis is very much framing that the difficulty and problem is simply the fact that countries have to fulfil and meet human rights obligations. That is not a crisis. A crisis is where those people have to flee from everything they own and everything they know to save their lives and the lives of their loved ones.

Again, this is just a little reminder. I am saying it because we need to keep placing this law in the context of why smuggling is happening and what is driving it, while addressing abusive bad practice and criminal activities. We need to see that one of the drivers is that kind of desperation. We want to ensure that persons who have experienced that kind of war and trauma are not in danger of being criminalised. The 2002 European Council directive on smuggling is very clear that persons who are being smuggled should not be criminalised. The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission's recommendation is also really clear around that. There is a danger still that persons who are being smuggled could end up being prosecuted under this Bill. I know that is not the intention but I have identified one potential lacuna. I feel that amendment No. 13 or amendment No. 14, as the Minister of State prefers, would give us that security and give a foundation to ensure that families who have experienced great trauma do not experience further trauma through one of their members being prosecuted for smuggling.