Criminals will profit from the Irish response to people smuggling

Nothing is likely to have gladdened the hearts of the criminal gangs who control smuggling of displaced people in the Mediterranean region than the spectacle of three government ministers traipsing all the way to Malta for a spurious media photo opportunity aboard the LE Eithne.

The likelihood of these criminals laughing all the way to the bank, at our expense, will have been further elevated by the declaration that Ireland is to host a further 600 refugees causing even more money to be extorted, with violent menace and lethal threat, from victims travelling into the Mediterranean aboard their grossly overcrowded vessels.

Between January 2009 and last May, statistics from the Refugee Applications Commissioner indicates that there were over 10,600 applications from asylum seekers seeking to be declared a refugee in Ireland.