Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, has labelled the EU\u2019s refugee relocation scheme as \u2018broken\u2019 after newly released figures show that only 322 refugees based in Greece and Italy have been resettled, despite a commitment to resettle 160,000.<\/p>\n
Speaking in the D\u00e1il during statements on the last European Council meeting Crowe called for urgent and united action to mitigate the worst refugee crisis that Europe has experienced since World War Two.<\/p>\n
Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cMore than 1 million refugees arrived in the EU by land and sea last year. It is the biggest crisis of forced displacement since World War 2.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne the primary responses of the EU was an agreement to resettle 160,000 refugees from Italy and Greece. Considering the scale of need and the scale of the crisis this was seen as a low amount, but to date only 322 refugees have been resettled.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a unacceptable. The Minister of State Minister for European Affairs, Dara Murphy, described the scheme as inefficient, in reality I think these figures shows its broken.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn contrast to the snail\u2019s pace of joint projects, EU countries have taken snap unilateral measures, including border lockdowns in the heart of the Schengen free-travel zone, and introduced tighter asylum laws in places such as Denmark, Germany, and Sweden.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is one of the biggest humanitarian crises in the world and the EU is simply failing to act in any coordinated manner, which is worsening the problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo far this State has only taken in 20 refugees under this programme, despite the Irish Government agreeing to accept 2,600.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe International Organisation for Migration has said that 31,244 migrants and refugees have arrived in Greece by sea since the start of this year, which is 21 times more than the same period last year. The organisation says projections indicate arrivals in Greece for 2016 may significantly exceed last year’s 853,650 record.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe refugee crisis is not going away. Many European politicians, particularly those on the right, want to close their eyes and somehow wish away this challenge, or some of them are seeking to transfer the refugee crisis onto the shoulders of others. Their solutions are not grounded in any reality.<\/p>\n
\u201cRefugees and asylum seekers are here in Europe and we need to act with unity in providing them with the protections and supports they clearly need.<\/p>\n
\u201cIreland needs to show leadership on this issue. We need to fix the current system. Italy and Greece can\u2019t be asked to carry this responsibility alone.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, has labelled the EU\u2019s refugee relocation scheme as \u2018broken\u2019 after newly released figures show that only 322 refugees based in Greece and Italy have been resettled, despite a commitment to resettle 160,000. Speaking in the D\u00e1il during statements on the last European Council meeting Crowe called […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,202,50,93,173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eu","category-eu-affairs-committee","category-human-rights","category-immigration","category-refugees"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2462"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2463,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2462\/revisions\/2463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}