Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s spokesperson on Foreign Affairs and Defence, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, has called on the Minister for Defence, Simon Coveney, to ensure that another Irish naval vessel is sent to the Mediterranean to participate in search and rescue missions.<\/p>\n
Speaking after he raised the issue in a Parliamentary Question to Minister Coveney, Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cThree Irish Naval Service ships, the L\u00c9 Eithne, the L\u00c9 Niamh and the L\u00c9 Samuel Beckett, rescued 8,631 refugees from the Mediterranean last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe commitment of the men and women who served on those ships in this difficult and lifesaving task makes them a credit to their country.<\/p>\n
\u201cAccording to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), 45,361 migrants and refugees have arrived in Greece by sea this month alone. This is roughly 31 times as many as the 1,472 recorded by the Greek Coast Guard for the whole of January 2015.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe EU needs to show greater solidarity with Greece and Italy, as they are completely overwhelmed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIreland can also show solidarity by supporting these lifesaving naval rescue missions and in relocating refugees who are fleeing war zones.<\/p>\n
\u201cI welcome that the Minister confirmed today that it\u2019s his intention to send another naval vessel, but it needs to happen as soon as possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnly 322 refugees based in Greece and Italy have been resettled, despite an EU commitment to resettle 160,000, and the Irish Government has so far only agreed to resettle 20 refugees under this programme.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am reiterating my calls for Ireland to show leadership and solidarity on this issue. We need to fix the current system and work to save lives and protect those fleeing war zones.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s spokesperson on Foreign Affairs and Defence, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, has called on the Minister for Defence, Simon Coveney, to ensure that another Irish naval vessel is sent to the Mediterranean to participate in search and rescue missions. Speaking after he raised the issue in a Parliamentary Question to Minister Coveney, Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[167,195,19,173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-defence-forces","category-department-of-defence","category-eu","category-refugees"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2478","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=2478"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2480,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2478\/revisions\/2480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}