I would like to thank you, Mr President and colleagues, for the moment's silence for the awful tragedy which took place only this week in my own home county of Wexford in Ireland. The tragic death of these eight people, including four children, found in the freight container just highlights the daily plight of many asylum-seekers and refugees throughout the European Union. Witnessing it last Saturday will remain with me forever. I would like to join personally with colleagues in this House in expressing my condolences to all those associated with this tragedy. Since that awful incident, the bodies of four dead Romanians have been found inside a container bound for Canada in the Italian port of Livorno. The scale and European-wide nature of this problem have been tragically highlighted by these episodes and it is up to us as a European Community to respond far better than we have done heretofore. Since its inception the European Union has always been based upon the values of solidarity and community. If the EU Council Summit at Laeken this weekend only addresses the issue of the strengthening of borders as a response to this modern day slave trade, it will have failed not only to respect these values but also to fulfil its leadership role. These appalling incidents highlight dramatically the contradictory attitudes to migration and refugee policies in the EU. Europe and Ireland increasingly need immigrant workers to do the jobs left vacant by greater prosperity and shrinking populations. But sadly, at the moment more political effort is being put into erecting stronger border controls to keeping migrants out than to developing policies for structured flows of immigration. Tragedies such as that in Wexford will continue to take place until this contradiction is seriously addressed by all Member State governments of the EU. I welcome efforts this week to finalise an EU-wide arrest warrant to deal with these criminal 'people smugglers' who benefit financially from the misery and desperation of others. The single market has brought many benefits to our citizens, but it has also provided the criminals with just that – a single market for their activities. Today, more than ever, we need Eurojust and Europol to deal effectively with the individuals who prey on the misery and desperation of others. In conclusion, the historical legacy of Irish economic migration throughout the world in the past two centuries, particularly during and after our Irish potato famine of 1845-1849 is one which we as Irish Europeans should not ignore. We should now be generous enough to take our share of those fleeing persecution and those seeking to make a better life for themselves. If the deaths of migrants in freight containers, on the undercarriages of trains or in ship holds in recent months demonstrates anything, it is that responses to economic migration based solely on the monitoring of the illegal movement of people will not prevent people from resorting to desperate measures to travel to Europe. It is imperative that we also address the underlying problems within the countries from which these desperate people flee. Perhaps then the tragedy last week in Wexford of the Turkish, Algerian and Albanian economic migrants will not have not been in vain.

Political group: PPE-DE