Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is very welcome. I will begin by commending colleagues in the Civil Engagement Group for this excellent and extremely timely motion. Senator Clonan was quite right to highlight the contrast between coverage of the tragic circumstance of that submarine in which five billionaires drowned and the absence of anything like that coverage for the 750 human beings who drowned in the Mediterranean the previous week. Let us be clear; that drowning was entirely unnecessary. They drowned after Frontex planes had flown over them at least twice and after the Greek Hellenic Coast Guard had watched them travelling for nearly 24 hours. The Alarm Phone support group for migrants had alerted the Hellenic Coast Guard, which did nothing. The other point we need to raise relates to why these poor, wretched and desperate human beings were determined to get past Greece. The reason is that Greece is now unfortunately renowned for illegal pushbacks of human beings on a mass scale as standard policy. I had the opportunity to confront the minister for migration last year, Mr. Mitarachi, on the appalling treatment being meted out by the coast guard. He declared that it was all fake news, which tells you all you need to know about the current state of the New Democracy Party, which is regrettably a sister party of Fine Gael.

Fortress Europe is ensuring that thousands of people drown. Sally Hayden got it absolutely right in her article in The Irish Timeslast week. The European Union has made mass drownings an everyday normal occurrence. It is, without doubt, the greatest human rights scandal of the 21st century. There is simply nothing to match it in its horror and its scale. It is regrettable to say the least that our Government is not doing more to counter the status quo, in which it is apparently okay for tens of thousands of people to drown. As Senator Joe O'Reilly quite rightly pointed out, 27,000 people have drowned over the past nine years alone. I want to be fair and to recognise that, in the Council of Europe, both Senator Joe O'Reilly and Senator O'Loughlin have spoken out on the right side of these issues, which makes this amendment all the more disappointing. I really want the Minister of State to explain why on earth he tabled an amendment this evening. What is it he objects to in the motion? Will he tell us that? I have had a look at it and I fear that what he objects to is the fact that the Civil Engagement Group's motion clearly calls for the return of search and rescue, which is absolutely needed because otherwise we are going to continue to see mass drownings every day, which is what we are facing at the moment.It also calls for safe legal routes, which is what any decent human being should call for. I cannot see the words “safe legal routes” anywhere in the countermotion, nor can I see an explicit call for additional search and rescue. Is the Government at the stage Fine Gael MEPs were in 2020 when they voted against calling for additional search and rescue missions? What would have happened if that motion had been passed and respected? How many thousands of lives would be saved now?

I have looked at the Government countermotion and it says a lot without saying anything. We should be better than this as a group of parliamentarians. I cannot see what the Government objects to in the motion. The situation is chronic and getting worse by the day. Human beings are drowning in mass numbers and will continue to do so as long as there is a fortress Europe and the European Union continues to apply appalling policies like funding the Libyan coastguard to round up human beings trying to make their way to Europe, bring them back to Libya, rape and torture them and sell them into slavery. That has all been documented. That is happening and the European Union is funding it.

The Government countermotion says nothing and is full of waffle, as opposed to the Civil Engagement Group motion, which has specific calls on which every one of us as human beings should be clear. Will the Minister of State publicly call for additional urgently needed search and rescue missions and for all states to support that call? That is what is needed and what I called for in the Council of Europe last week. Will he call for safe legal routes? There is a nonsense line that we need to break the business model of traffickers and smugglers but the European Union creates that model by not allowing safe legal routes. That is at the heart of all this. It appears the Government, unlike its colleagues, in fairness, at the Council of Europe, are content to go along with this. Otherwise, why on earth would it not support the motion?

We can send a strong united message this evening by taking on board the Civil Engagement Group’s excellently worded motion calling for search and rescue missions, safe legal routes and urgent, real action, as opposed to saying this is awful and we must try to stop the smugglers. That is the language the far right is using in the Council of Europe. I am shocked and disappointed the Government in this amendment uses such language. Surely all of us should be better than that. Will the Minister of State please have a further think on this? It will not cost the Government anything to support the motion and we can all unite in calling for the urgent search and rescue missions we know are needed to save human lives. The Minister of State can and should do better.