The core intention of the EU agreement with Turkey was to “break the business model of people smugglers” and stop migrants attempting the treacherous journey across the Aegean Sea, the acting Taoiseach has said.

Enda Kenny told the Dáil during a debate on the EU council leaders’ meeting that “we know this agreement alone will not resolve the crisis”, but it should stop people risking their lives and “it should help us to manage the flow of asylum seekers more effectively, more humanely and, obviously, more fairly”.

Compliance with international law was central to the talks and “the legal advice of the EU institutions is that there is such compliance” he said in the wake of criticisms of the agreement. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees also considered it legally compliant but it “emphasised the need to ensure that all commitments are met”.

Core agreement

However, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said the core agreement “focused solely on trying to block the main migration route to Europe through tougher border controls enforcement”. He said the UN and relief agencies continued to struggle for funding. “There is a basic moral duty on us and on all countries to step up and do more,” and that the focus should not just be on those seeking refuge in Europe.

Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams said the Taoiseach was ignoring the concerns of the UNHCR who “stated this will inevitably lead to human rights violations”

Acting Tánaiste Joan Burton said “peace in Syria has to be the primary objective of EU policy”.

Palestinian camp

Bríd Smith of AAA-PBP said some Syrians were stuck in the Yarmouk Palestinian camp in Damascus, “where people are literally dying of famine. We have no idea of the suffering, treachery, rape, plunder, pillage, murder and terror visited on those people by proxy armies from Russia, Saudi Arabia and the Syrian regime.”

During a separate debate on the meeting of EU agriculture ministers, a number of TDs made their inaugural speeches. Sinn Féin Sligo-Leitrim TD Martin Kenny said many farmers and rural dwellers were not seeing any recovery while Mick Barry of AAA-PBP said agriculture ministers were discussing overproduction, particularly in the dairy and pigmeat sectors, at a time when there was a problem of food poverty.