Limerick senator calls for urgent migrant crisis action

A LIMERICK senator has made an impassioned plea for immediate action to save lives in the Mediterranean Sea.

Sinn Fein Senator Paul Gavan spoke during a debate on the topic at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), where he criticised the “pitifully low” number of migrants Ireland has given taken in.

Senator Gavan said that some countries have “simply failed to show solidarity.”

"My country, Ireland, is one of those,” he said, “over a five year period we have taken a total of just 2,555 people, this despite a pledge to take 4,000 people. These figures for my country are frankly abysmal and a stain on our record in the field of human rights.

"The Government of Ireland must now begin now to show true solidarity and significantly increase the numbers of refugees and asylum seekers that it is prepared to resettle,” he said, “they must also immediately dismantle the direct provision system currently employed to receive asylum seekers.

“Human Rights are universal. Democracies are founded on that very principle,” he said, “and that principle is being undermined every day that the vulnerable and powerless are left to perish in the Mediterranean.

“Earlier this week we heard President Macron reject the term 'Fortress Europe', but what other words could you use to describe a situation where the European Union has allowed 20,000 people to perish in the Mediterranean over the last six years? 

 “The annual military expenditure of EU member states is €200 Billion Euros, with official EU policy being to massively increase this figure. Imagine if even a portion of that funding was diverted towards a progressive settlement programme across member states? 

"But instead of helping migrants, we are now committed to spend more than €30bn a year on border security to keep them out,” he said, “European money funds a despot in Turkey and warlords in Libya.” During the debate, senator Gavan welcomed the call for a new EU rescue mission but added that it “must be different from Operation Sophia in that it should not engage in assisting gangsters and warlords masquerading as coastguard and financing the running of death and torture camps in Libya.”