Irish Navy boat LÉ Eithne will be deployed to rescue migrants
IRISH Navy vessel LÉ Eithne is on stand-by for deployment this weekend to meet migrant boats on the Mediterranean in a humanitarian role.
Ministers approved her despatch yesterday after an EU meeting on the crisis which has seen 1,000 migrants drown in recent weeks.
The long-range patrol vessel, which entered service 22 years ago, will have on board 67 crew and two medical officers to assist refugees who may be rescued on the high seas.
But any migrants taken on board will not have any right of residency in Ireland as the ship will be operating under an EU mandate, the Government indicated last night.
The Taoiseach promised in the EU meeting in Luxembourg that a naval service vessel would be despatched, boosting the interception of peopletrafficking vessels.
Other member states such as the UK and Germany are also committing patrol vessels following a spate of recent sinkings in which thousands of migrants have died.
The response was drawn up following a desperate appeal for assistance from Italy. The Italian i sland of Lampedusa, close to the Libyan coast, has become the focus point of vessels forming an escape flotilla from north Africa.
Marine and Defence Minister Simon Coveney brought a memorandum to Government yesterday seeking the deployment of LÉ Eithne, the first time an Irish Naval Service vessel will have had an operational role in the Mediterranean. The memo was approved by the Cabinet.
It is not clear how long LÉ Eithne will be on station, but she has a capacity to stay at sea for a month. It’s likely she will operate from Italian ports and possibly Lampedusa itself.
Naval Service sources indicated the LÉ Eithne was likely to depart the Haulbowline naval base on Saturday.
The expanded fleet, to which other member states are contributing, will be operated by Frontex, the EU’s border agency, in response to a spate of drownings of desperate would-be escapees from Africa and the Middle East. Speaking a fortnight ago after a special EU summit in Brussels, at which leaders observed a minute’s silence to mark recent deaths, Mr Kenny said: ‘ This is a mounting humanitarian and political crisis. The equivalent of almost three jumbo jets full of people have been lost recently.’
Ireland recently offered the decommissioned LÉ Aoife to the Maltese navy to help with migrant patrols, but the Government in Valetta let it be known that it was not interested in end-of-life vessels.
British Prime Minister David Cameron insisted that Royal Navy vessels working with Frontex would be depositing rescued persons on the nearest point of the European mainland, ‘most likely Italy’. The Dublin Convention provides that an undocumented refu-
‘This is a mounting crisis’
gee, migrant or asylum seeker found in one part of the EU must be returned to the member state in which they first set foot.
The EU states’ draft commitment is to double spending on Mediterranean patrols and responses to SOS transmissions, and ‘systematic efforts to identify, capture and destroy vessels before they are used by traffickers’.
The task ahead is huge, with more than 10,000 migrants plucked from seas between Italy and Libya over the last week alone, fleeing poverty and conflict.