Goal critical of EU’s ‘shameful’ response to Syrian migration crisis

The EU’s response to the migration crisis is “shameful” and Ireland should put pressure on Europe and other global powers to take appropriate steps to end the war in Syria, Goal chief executive Barry Andrews has told an Oireachtas Committee.

Mr Andrews urged the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade to put Ireland at the centre of a concerted drive to end the war in Syria and called for a Dail debate on the “crisis of our time”as soon as possible. “It is time for Ireland to stand up on this issue,” he said.

Committee chairman Fine Gael TD Pat Breen secured agreement to write to party whips seeking a Dáil debate on the refugee and migration crisis.

In his address to the committee on the European refugee crisis, Mr Andrews said up to 28 barrel bombs and missiles were being dropped daily on Syrian civilians in a province the size of Co Galway earlier this month. He said many Syrian children have been traumatised by the war to a point where they are unable to speak for years.

Since he last briefed the Committee in April 2013, a further 180,000 people had been killed in Syria, bringing the total deaths to at least 250,000, he noted. The numbers needing aid had almost doubled to 12.2 million; 7.6 million were internally displaced while the number who had fled Syria to seek refuge elsewhere had trebled to 4.1 million.

Sophie Magennis, Head of Office of the UN Refugee Agency told the hearing strong criticisms from several committee members of the UN, EU, and global response to the refugee crisis was “very valid”.

She said the UNHCR had spoken many times since 2012 about the lack of a coherent response. While there seemed no prospect as of now of a political consensus within the UN Security Council about a political response, Ireland could help advance pressure in that regard , she said.

Amid “all the mayhem and lack of political leadership”, the UNHCR was working with people on the ground and has spent US$5 billion helping refugees but “simply cannot cope with the numbers”.

In her separate address to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on EU Affairs, Barbara Nolan, head of the European Commission Representation in Ireland, said Europe was committed to pursuing all UN options to try and get a global response to the rapidly evolving refugee crisis which was “top” of the EU agenda.

The Syrian situation is complex, will take years to resolve and, contrary to what some think, there is no EU army, she added.

Ms Nolan said the EU, as the world’s wealthiest and most stable community, has a “moral duty” to those fleeing war and persecution and is applying all the different elements in its armoury in an effort to stop some of the worst aspects of the crisis.

These included measures for relocation and resettlement of refugees within the EU and raising the crisis in international fora. The development of a common EU policy on asylum was “crucial but this was a “sensitive” issue and it was not easy to make advances, she said.

The German and Italian Ambassadors to Ireland, Matthias Hopfner and Giovanni Adorni Braccesi, along with Piotr Rakowski , Charge d’Affaire of the Polish Embassy to Ireland, also addressed the committee. All three urged a collective EU response to the refugee crisis, including agreement on “safe countries” of origin so economic migrants from those countries can be returned there.