Pringle: Europe should extend the same welcome to all refugees

By Thomas Pringle
Updated: 23rd June 2023

ndependent TD for Donegal, Thomas Pringle, said Europe should extend the same welcome to all refugees that it has rightly extended to people from Ukraine.

He said citizens and migrants alike should be entitled to affordable, decent accommodation, and access to basic services and the job market.

Deputy Pringle said: “It is estimated that over the last number of years, 25,000 people have drowned in the Mediterranean and that is something that all of us in Europe should be shocked at.

“I hope that it is good that the EU is now a party to the Council of Europe and that FRONTEX and its role in the disgraceful acts in the Aegean will come under scrutiny here but, only time will tell in relation to that.

“I think the response to migration is made even more remarkable because we have seen that it is possible to treat migrating people properly and provide for their needs in the way that all of Europe has rightly embraced the Ukrainian refugees.

“That should be the standard rather than the exception,” he said.

Deputy Pringle is in Strasbourg this week for the summer plenary session of the Council of Europe. He is a member of the Unified European Left in the Council and he submitted his comments for the record of a joint debate on Wednesday on a report and draft resolution on Integration of migrants and refugees: benefits for all parties involved.

Deputy Pringle said: “The report outlines very simple basic acts that should be in every national response to the issue of migration. Indeed, they should be in every national government’s response for our own citizens as well.

“The reports states ‘an affordable and decent accommodation is a prerequisite for a successful integration of migrants, a smooth access to the job market as well as to basic services, such as healthcare and education’. That I think is the least that all citizens and migrants should be able to receive,” he said.

The deputy said: “In Ireland we have a particular problem with Government departments not having consultation with communities prior to the arrival of migrants into an accommodation centre. That is why I think it is vitally important that paragraph 3 of the resolution is there and should be sent particularly to all accommodation providers that are state parties.

“‘Integration programmes can have positive outcomes only if and when such integration programmes are well prepared and implemented in cooperation with all the relevant stakeholders’. Host communities are relevant stakeholders but not vetoers, as they are misunderstood in the Irish sense,” he said.

Deputy Pringle concluded his statement with the same call he made in remarks to the Council of Europe on Tuesday, saying: “I would like to say as well that it is very important that this organisation pushes for the release of Julian Assange.”