Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s spokesperson on Foreign Affairs and Defence, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, has sent his best wishes to the crew of the L\u00c9 Rois\u00edn who have departed for a 3 month humanitarian mission in the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n
Deputy Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cI welcome that the Government decided to send a fourth naval vessel on these lifesaving missions in the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year the crew of three Irish Naval vessels, the L\u00c9 Eithne, the L\u00c9 Niamh and the L\u00c9 Samuel Beckett, rescued 8,592 people from serious and life threating situations in seas around the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe International Organization for Migration estimates that from 1 January to 25 April of this year 181,476 migrants and refugees have entered Europe by sea, arriving in Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Spain. During this short couple of months it is estimated 1,232 desperate people have died while attempting theses dangerous sea crossings.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is vitally important that Ireland\u2019s plays its own part in responding to this refugee and humanitarian crisis by increasing the amount of refugees that can be relocated here and by sending naval vessels on these search and rescue missions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wish the sixty strong crew of the L\u00c9 R\u00f3is\u00edn the very best in this difficult and demanding mission.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have also informed Minister Coveney that I am extremely concerned about the increased militarisation of these missions. Reports from the G5 summit last week indicate that American warships may now join European Union vessels off the coast of Libya by this summer in a Nato-led attempt to somehow, by militarily means, stop refugees.<\/p>\n
\u201cIrish military vessels must play no part in using military force to push refugees back to the failed state of Libya.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am calling on the Irish Government to use its voice to clearly oppose the deployment of military vessels against rubber dinghies overflowing with children and those families seeking sanctuary and a new life in Europe.\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 sent his best wishes to the crew of the L\u00c9 Rois\u00edn who have departed for a 3 month humanitarian mission in the Mediterranean. Deputy Crowe said: \u201cI welcome that the Government decided to send a fourth naval vessel on these lifesaving missions in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[167,195,180,173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-defence-forces","category-department-of-defence","category-mediterranean","category-refugees"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2549","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=2549"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2550,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2549\/revisions\/2550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}