The EU Migration and Asylum pact has “mysteriously disappeared” from the agenda in advance of the local and EU elections, so that government parties can “avoid uncomfortable questions on the matter,” Deputy Mattie McGrath has claimed.
Speaking on Tuesday, the Tipperary Independent TD said that the Dail schedule for this week was “practically empty” as he pressed Taoiseach Simon Harris, asking, “Where has the debate on the EU migration pact gone?”
It comes one week after the EU Council adopted the Pact, in what it dubbed a “landmark reform” of Europe’s asylum and migration system. While 10 legislative items of the controversial pact were signed off on, Ireland and Denmark did not vote on the pact, meaning they are not bound to them or subject to their application.
While this includes the EURODAC regulation, along with the asylum procedure and resettlement regulations, Ireland has however opted into the pact overall.
Speaking this week, Deputy McGrath said: “Everyone knows that the European elections and local elections are due to take place. The pact was due back from committee in the first week of May and was supposed to have been disposed of by the House by 9 May, as we were told. It has just gone missing.”
The Deputy said that opposition to the contentious legislation had resulted in “trouble” across the country.
“We raised this matter at a Business Committee meeting last week. We have problems all over the country. There was a public meeting last night at the Pike in Rathcabbin to discuss St. Kieran’s Nursing Home which had been given over for Ukrainians and is now being turned into an International Protection Accommodation Services centre. It is the same with the Heywood Road site in Clonmel, and what happened in Newtownmountkennedy and Doneraile in Cork,” he said.
“You name it. There has been trouble and violence in some of these places. I abhor violence from any source. We do not want that, but a vacuum has been created. This was voted through the EU and now the European Union Parliament members and candidates want it hidden until after the election. The Government also wants it hidden as well. Then we will be back and it will be pushed through. People are not fools. They are well copped on to the Government.
“Where is the EU migration pact? He asked. “When will it back here for debate? How much time will we have to debate it? Will it be voted on segment by segment as opposed to all in one block?”
Responding, Taoiseach Simon Harris said that the government would bring forward the EU Migration Pact for debate, and a vote, “at a time of our choosing.”
“That is what we will decide to do. I am pleased to know the Deputy is eager. We are very much looking forward to debating him on the pact,” he said.
To this, Deputy McGrath interjected, responding: “After the election.”
“We are very much looking forward to debating it,” Mr Harris responded. “Because of the position held by those Deputies who believe we can go it alone in a global migration crisis.
“It is a legitimate position for them to hold; it is just wrong. I look forward to debating it with the Deputies and explaining to them why we believe operating at EU level makes sense.
When it comes to migration, accommodation is important. So, too, is the Government considering the levers at its disposal to move from an emergency response to a sustainable one. We took several decisions last week on this that were sensible, and we will take several more in the coming weeks.”
Responding to a Gript query, the Department of the Taoiseach confirmed: “The EU Migration Pact will be scheduled in the coming weeks.”
Amid opposition to the Pact, Justice Minister Helen McEntee this month claimed that the numbers seeking asylum in Ireland would rise if the legislation was rejected.
Minister McEntee insisted that the State cannot manage migration on its own, and that those seeking international protection here “would most certainly increase” if the EU Pact was not adopted.
Standing by her claim that 80 per cent of asylum applicants were arriving here via Northern Ireland, she claimed that the current migration system is not working. This, she said, was because it was enacted when Ireland had 3,500 IPAS applicants a year, yet this figure jumped to 13,000 last year.
“So it’s not realistic to present this as an issue which would simply disappear if we chose not to engage with it or indeed not to opt into the pact,” she said.