MEP Marie Walsh says government's 'soft' language on migrant return hubs is 'really frustrating'

THE GOVERNMENT HAS been accused of lacking a strategy when it comes to how it will implement the EU Migration Pact, which entered into force last month.

Fine Gael MEP Maria Walsh said she finds the government’s approach to the issue “really frustrating” and that the “soft” language being used in relation to the possible introduction of so-called “return hubs” outside the EU for migrants makes her “nervous”. 

Last month, Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan said Ireland wants to opt into new EU rules that could allow failed asylum seekers to be sent to these hubs. But yesterday, Taoiseach Micheál Martin appeared to contradict him, with the Taoiseach saying Ireland has “no immediate plans” to opt into such hubs. 

Responding to these comments today, Walsh told The Journal she will push back on any plans to introduce hubs on humanitarian grounds.

“I’ve been tracking Minister O’Callaghan’s comments on this for quite a while. We don’t have a strategy, ultimately,” Walsh said. 

On the Taoiseach’s comments yesterday, Walsh said:

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“Soft language like that makes me very nervous.”

She noted that it is almost a month since the EU Migration Pact entered into force and said it is “really frustrating” that Ireland doesn’t have a plan in place yet on whether we are “in or out of return hubs”.

In particular, Walsh took issue with the fact that, under the EU rules, families could be sent to such hubs. 

Under the EU-wide rules, member states are able to establish return hubs in third countries for people who have no right to stay in the member states.

Such return hubs could serve either as the final destination or as transfer centres facilitating onward return to the country of origin or another third country.

Walsh noted that some non-EU countries like Libya, with which the EU already cooperates on migration, are “absolutely atrocious for humanitarian rights”.

“Yet we’re about to give, as an EU bloc, millions [of euro] to countries like this when we should just input it into our migration asylum process and make that work, and then maybe come back to the table in a year’s time to look at other elements,” Walsh said.

“But the return hubs is a no-go for me too,” she added.

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