 And I'm going to ask Dr. Jaffee, the Director General, to say a few words of the way of introduction. Thank you, Brendan, and oh, thank you to everyone for coming in such large numbers, but we know it's to hear Peter Sutherland and not to hear me. So today it is a real honour to have Peter Sutherland back to talk on the subject of migration, migration and development, and the massive challenge facing us as humanity, I would say, at the moment. I think Peter may have felt that for some time he was a voice crying in the wilderness on the subject of migration and development, but he has now become a central voice, as we, especially in Europe, wake up to the challenges. Let me just say that we have, over the past number of years in the multilateral context, negotiated with Ireland, and especially David Donahue, our ambassador in New York, playing a very strong role, negotiated a framework within which we can, if we have the political will, address the challenge of sustainable development, migration and humanitarian crisis. We agreed, or the leaders of the world agreed, that the new sustainable development goals and the 2030 agenda would have one critical commitment to leave no one behind and to focus on the most vulnerable. The World Humanitarian Summit was one of the first tests of that, and next, in two weeks' time, we have the Migration Summit in New York, the Migration and Refugee Summit in New York. Now it struck me, in preparing for the World Humanitarian Summit, that if we've given a commitment to leave no one behind and to focus on the most vulnerable, is there anyone more vulnerable than a child in a refugee camp out in the deserts of Syria? But thinking of it again today, not to have competition and vulnerability, it strikes me, is there anyone more vulnerable than a child in the hold of a boat that is fated to sink in the Mediterranean, i.e. in our sea on the borders of our continent? I think we in the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Irish aid program have been challenged in recent years to look at our programs, to look at our concept of migration, to look at our concept of development, and to look at the different symptoms of crisis that maybe we have been addressing in silos. Migration is a crisis, it's a problem, it's also a symptom of a crisis. If you look at the protracted nature of conflicts, if you look at the situation in Africa where over 80% of Ireland's development funding goes, huge progress has been made since the turn of the century under the Millennium Development Goals, and yet with conflict, with persistent underdevelopment and with climate change, by 2050 we can see that 28% of the population of the world will be in Africa and that the rate of job creation is not going to be high enough to look after everybody in the continent of Africa unless we look again at how we relate to Africa. So I have said many times recently internally that we need, as a European Union, to look at Africa not as something that's out there, a place to which we give some aid, it is our neighbourhood because it's not just our values, it's also our interests that dictate that Africa is our neighbourhood because there is nowhere else for those young people to go if they are desperate in 10, in 15, in 20 years time. And I know Peter will talk of speaking to migrants and refugees. There is a good book that I read in the summer, it's a journalist's book and that's not a bad thing. It is The New Odyssey by Patrick Kingsley, talking to migrants and refugees coming to Europe. And they say what we hear when we meet them too. If you're a Syrian, many people say, I'm already dead, I feel dead. Why would I not take the risk? There was a young guy from Ghana, he wasn't a refugee really, he was more what would be called an economic migrant and he said, we watch developments all the time. We know what's happening, we know what's being planned but to be perfectly honest we're going to come anyway because a dead goat doesn't fear the butcher's knife. Now that is a call of clarity I would say to all of us. And in our discussions and debates, the voice of Peter Sutherland is there all the time and I think that's why we have such a good turnout here today to challenge us, to provoke us and to explain to us the implications of the migration crisis, the humanitarian crisis, the persistence of conflict for us as Europeans and for the European project. And I think there's no people who should feel more able to address or feel the need to address this more than the Irish with our particular history and our particular history of migration and our particular understanding not just of refugees but of the concept of economic migrants. So we look forward to hearing now from Peter what Ireland should be doing more across all areas of policy and I would just say that there is nobody better placed to talk to us. He is the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary General for Migration Development since 2006. He was responsible for the creation of the Global Forum on Migration and Development. He's President of the International Catholic Migration Commission and a member of the Migration Advisory Board of the International Organization for Migration. And before that, we can't really do justice to his CV. He has been Attorney General, European Commissioner, Responsibility for Competition Policy and I think for education for a period, Chairman of AIB, Founding Director General of the World Trade Organization, Chairman of BP, Chairman of the Trilateral Commission, Chairman of the London School of Economics, Chairman of Golden Sacks and now he is devoting his time I think almost exclusively to this issue of migration and migration and development. So we are honoured to be here and to hear from him. Thank you very much. Well, first of all, let me say that I'm concerned really at the huge number that are here for what I thought would be an intimate gathering but thank you for coming. I'm also concerned because I'm very conscious of the fact because I'm doing it all the time that mouthing what may appear to be platitudes about migration particularly when you're not delivering on the ground in the political turmoil that exists in Europe today is an easy enough job and it's perhaps a particularly easy job in Ireland where we have had a more positive engagement to date and hopefully will have into the future with the issue of migration than many others in Europe have had. Let me at the outset say that those of us who consider ourselves or would like to be considered as liberals in the old sense of the word. Look back at the period after the Second World War as it glowed an extremely important period in the development of institutions and principles. That's true of the UN itself, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which incidentally specifically refers to the right to leave your country but does not refer to any right to go to any other country but when one looks at the European Union itself and you see in the a key communitaire the same basic principles about the dignity of the human person the equality of man that are reflected in the charter of the United Nations you see at least in the expression of principles in the expression of values a period of time which had considerable importance and then you fast forward to today we have a dreadful development it seems to me of a sort of nationalism which all of these institutions were created to stop we have a type of nationalism reflected in parties right across western Europe countries which were the most important in developing these principles that I've referred to for example France who I think deserve particular credit sort of Jacques Maritain and others Monet Schumann and so on at the beginning of the European Union these countries now have as we know with forthcoming elections in Germany and France in particular being worrying they have taken a different course or at least a substantial number of taken a different course and the Brexit vote in England was motivated in significant measure by the issue of migration and all of this is a reflection in my view of a sort of nationalism that I reject we've had too much of a violent nationalism in our history we now know surely that you cannot define people by their race and yet that is what is happening right across Europe they foreign born population as a matter of interest in various European countries today is the following Ireland 15.8% UK 13.4% Germany 14.5% Sweden 18.5% Luxembourg 45.9% Switzerland 26.6% the Irish figure is quite large its impact however is to be born in mind in the context of the fact that the largest number of migrants that we have in Ireland are English not even British, they're English and whether we would have quite the same relatively constructive engagement with the migration phenomenon were they to have come from another more visibly different part of the world we can speculate about but I think we can be reasonably proud of where we are today so the post war period had a number of values and principles amongst which I would include solidarity, plurality, tolerance, non-discrimination as principles and somebody once said of a neighbor of ours that the problem was that they had a history that they could not forget and they had a future that they could not avoid and they couldn't reconcile the two with that description of a certain type of nationalism is something that we all share to a certain point it was George Orwell who made the point that nationalism in the end of the day is just thinking you're better than the other guy and basically if we scratch the surface many of us occasionally think that although we would deny it so we're faced with a world today which is in the throes of the generational challenge as the Pope has put it of our time and it's one that is not going to go away it's going to get more and more important, serious and difficult to handle and just looking at one example of that in terms of the African population in 1950 Europe had a population twice that of all of Africa today Africa is 40% larger than Europe in 2050 Africa will have a population three times that of Europe we had one million asylum seekers in Europe last year as you know asylum seekers, refugees who are entitled to asylum are quite different from migrants refugees are people essentially who are escaping from war or persecution and under a 1951 convention that was created out of the terrible war that created all the other institutions that I referred to that created an obligation born out of the suffering of Jews in particular to give sanctuary a sanctuary incidentally denied to many Jews by many countries in the period leading up to 1939 but this was to be a brave new world and that brave new world to an extent has done the job in terms of refugees but refugees are quite different from economic migrants some heads of government refer to economic migrants as everyone else if you're not escaping from persecution or war you're an economic migrant and you're to be sent back you may ask where's the logic in that if you're escaping from a natural disaster of an appalling kind if you're escaping from famine or some catatismic event which is not persecution or war have you no rights well in Europe in particular to refer to that to them for a moment there has been in my opinion a quite appalling reaction in some countries to the issue of migration whether it be refugees or economic migrants the Czech prime minister last week said we will take no more Muslim refugees the Slovak prime minister in the last month said we will only take Christian migrants Slovakia, Romania, Hungary and the Czech Republic have all refused to accept the idea of sharing of migrants there's been a vote by qualified majority voting in the European Union which carried the conclusion that we should share and accept an objective quota system based on GDP, unemployment total population and so on we now know that on the 2nd of October the Hungarians will have a referendum on this issue so we're going to have a referendum on a toxic issue like migration to upset or turn over a law that was agreed within the European Union where do we stand on this? apart from our massive interest at least in my view in the survival of the European Union itself leaving aside any moral concern to those who are to be denied refugee status how can we as a continent aspiring to a belief such as those values in the preamble to the Treaty of Rome how can we countenance the creating of razor wire fences right up through Europe how can we countenance the employment in the last short period of a large number of people in Hungary I have to come back to Hungary again where Mr. Orban referred to refugees as a poison this is a challenge to the European Union it's a challenge to the United Nations it's a challenge to the values which we believe in we now have in the Brenner, at the Brenner Pass a historic location between the border of Italy and Austria we now have men with guns we have the Schengen Agreement which even if our interest was solely economic is of considerable importance to everybody here who's exporting products across Europe collapsing because incidentally of that according to one reason survey will be 18 billion euros per annum to the collective European countries who will lose the value of it so we have a very serious situation and Ireland may be a small country on the periphery of Europe but we have an equal voice in the European Union and that equal voice should be used by expressing publicly and clearly the value system which we believe to be absolutely inherent in the European Union of which we are members we have in the immediate future the outcome and the likely effects of the Brexit issue which certainly has bolstered the support across Europe for those who would destroy the European Union itself I won't use the adjective that I might be tempted to use but Marine Le Pen but she said that the Brexit vote was the biggest political event since the fall of the Berlin Wall but the only thing she said in the last year with which I would agree but she said it and she's right on that so this is a time when Europe and the world has to start to articulate our real position and deliver on it in terms of migrants and refugees we can't have a situation where the largest party in the most liberal of countries namely the Netherlands is led by Geert Wilders another member of the same group in regard to migrants they have an election next March as a matter of interest we have an enormous issue where we must be heard and raise our voices but I appreciate as I said at the outset that it's very easy for those of us who are in multilateral organisations and I've been careful to stay apart from a failed candidacy for the doll once upon a time to stay away from the appalling quagmire that is national politics it's easy, it's easy to say these things to politicians but I think this is a time for the expression of values in 2005 Kofi Annan whom I knew when I was with the WTO contacted me and asked me to become he actually asked me to become I commissioner for refugees and I said I would when? and he said in a fortnight and I said hang on for a second I don't know how I ever got the job but I'm chairman I said of BP and it's the biggest company it was at the time in Europe I can't walk out in two weeks I was then that's the end of that he said so that was the end of that and then sometime later he came back to me again after my the man who was appointed ended up in some domestic tiff which I better not go into Mr. Lubbers was appointed Prime Minister of the Netherlands and then he had to leave his job and I got the same phone call and I said well this is a fortnight no he says it's not a fortnight he says you can have as long as you want well I said is there a snag? he said what do you mean I said any problem that you should tell me about not really I said what's that and he said well he said I have to advertise the job I said you must be joking if you think I'm going to put my hand up and then you're going to advertise the job so that ended that then he came back to me a final time and said will I become special representative which I've done to my great pleasure ever since but at that time at the UN level there was a strict division between the national sovereignty types led by the United States and those who believed in multilateralism and when I went to meet the US representative to the UN I was more or less thrown out of his office because he said this was Bush regime migration is a matter of national competence and sovereignty we can't have foreigners looking into a constitution which we think is perfectly adequate to protect the rights of individuals and we just have a lot of people from other countries with much worse standards throwing insults at us certain element of truth in that argument but the US at that time was very concerned about creating any multilateral response to this situation well since then and on the event of Obama becoming president with a permanent representative born in this town things have changed and the US in many ways is presenting a leadership role in some of the things that we're doing and what are we doing in the UN well UNHCR is providing an enormous amount of support in camps all over the world I went recently to Sicily and I would say in the camp that I was there in for quite some time virtually everybody in the camp was not a refugee so the issue is what do we do for those who are not refugees do we have any responsibility for survival migrants who are leaving a natural disaster why should they be treated differently to people who are escaping from a war like Syria and how do we deal with this issue how do we deal with an issue where the population of migrants is defined as I said earlier by proximity to the cause of danger and problem we send down our ships and save lives we collect people as do the British and others from the Mediterranean and over 3,000 have drowned already this year but we collect them but we only do it or at least some of the countries in question I don't know whether we would do it otherwise but in some cases it's only done because of the agreement of Italy to receive those who are fished from the deep and they are left there so the numbers in Greece and in Italy continue to go the razor wire fences up the Balkans stop people escaping from Greece the most disadvantaged country perhaps in the European Union similarly at the border between Switzerland and Italy there is a total blockage being imposed all of the Balkan states are more or less in the same position stop them coming in and who's to say that if we had the same sort of numbers coming in here that we wouldn't also be slightly less welcoming than we may appear to be I think we have an absolute obligation to support the relocation of migrants from Italy and Greece and to share amongst Europeans with the spirit of solidarity which we have experienced for an example through the regional and social fund over years in this country share the responsibility now we're not the worst there are others who are far more difficult but it is a responsibility which we cannot avoid and it's a responsibility which is in our own self-interest also in the context of the survival of the European Union and the avoidance of a fracturing with fishers running through every national border in the European Union what have we to do at home I think we have to do a number of things first of all the best example is probably to be found in Canada in Canada they send 500 soldiers and civil servants to Lebanon to help to work out how to take who to take fairly reasonably and to bring them back they also created a major connectivity between business, homes and migrants which is allowed for the integration of people in a way which is important I think local authorities have a huge role to play mayors of cities the mayor of Athens is a wonderful man I spent some time with them going round and what they have done there is that camps instead of being located out in the middle of nowhere which is what happens in some places they are split up and divided within the cities and the schools and the whole system works effectively and they liaise with other countries like Barcelona and Madrid who are also providing a different approach but in each of these countries there is a inter departmental structure and committee to deal with the issue of migration and with Canada there is a constant discussion between those who are involved particularly the minister for migration and public opinion I asked the question of some of our well known NGOs over lunch is it better to not have a discussion about it than to have a discussion if we have a discussion are we likely to raise the issue in a way which is more difficult to handle well I'm not so sure that that would be the case in fact I don't think it is the case I think many of us are very happy with the migrants that we see and interact with in Ireland but we do have to do a little more than just landing them in a house in a remote spot we have to surely integrate them into the Ireland of today in a way which is sustainable and not going to create problems so we need bottom up governance in regard to migrants not simply hectoring speeches like this one but bottom up practical implications of migration have to be addressed and local governments are absolutely important to this a greater devolution as I've said takes place in other countries but there are huge disparities I think we have to get more serious about this than perhaps we are finally let me say this Ireland through the Department of Foreign Affairs and David Dunne who deserves particular credit who is here today our permanent representative had a lot to do with the sustainable development goals which set out a roadmap in regard to 2030 post-2030 period and which referred significantly to the positive value for development both of countries from which they depart and send back remittances to countries to which they go and over 80% incidentally go to third world countries not developed countries and those sustainable development goals were adopted by the United Nations he then took on the role of which I've been glad to be working with on the role of the 19th of September when the heads of government we hope of countries all over the world will come to the General Assembly and will try to map out a general series of agreements and a pathway to a conference in 2018 which will do something effective now you and indeed I get bored listening to the well-meaning platitudes that often take place at meetings of this kind but institutions are vital just as they are in the European Union they can't be dismissed with an imperious wand as irrelevant commission for an example was the one that proposed the quota sharing idea but in order to defeat those who stand for a world which hopefully we all here reject we need the articulation of a European position in particular that we as Irish people can be proud of not simply and I'm not saying that this is the case at the moment but not simply saying well that's over there they're far away from us we're like the Skiperine Eagle we're remote from all of this keep your head down and hope for the best just and good enough it's not good enough morally it's not good enough legally and it's not good enough economically for our future which has to be a future intimately connected with a thriving value filled entity which is the European Union thank you very much thank you very much Peter Peter has agreed to take questions or listens to some comments and it's on the record for the brief aren't the shorter speech the better to give a perfect example the first is Alan Dukes Alan Dukes a former colleague of Peter's who didn't escape the snake pit of politics Peter I think you are far too kind to this country in what you said I agree with your sentiments and with what you want us to do but surely we have to recognize that in Ireland if we're going to be serious about this we have to put an end to this iniquitous direct provision system we have where many refugees and asylum seekers and economic migrants live in dreadful conditions and we have to give some reality to bringing more refugees and asylum seekers into this country it seems to me we must do that and participate with any kind of authority in making the kind of case that you're holding here it's easy for us most of the foreign born people who live in this country are Europeans and thank god we haven't had problems with eastern European people integrating here personally I'm a utopian libertarian who thinks that people should be entitled to go anywhere they want in the world at any time so I'm going to ask do you feel that we should keep on with this distinction between you mentioned between refugees and migrants dead is dead whether it's as a result of a bomb or a bullet or a drought or a famine or endemic disease so what should we do to give ourselves some authority to participate as you suggest we should well and taking the last question first I'm very strongly of the view that we can't muck around with the definition of a refugee if we merge it in some way with migrants more generally or we water it down we'll lose it there are many countries around the world that would love to see the end of the 1951 convention which they've signed up to so I think we should put a cordon sanitaire around that however imperfect or otherwise it may be I agree I'm no expert on the issue of direct provision I actually believe that those who are waiting for asylum decisions are and should be allowed to work they shouldn't be excluded from work and people say that that becomes a pull factor well I heard one prime minister at an earlier stage in this revoltingly say that it was a pull factor if you save people in the Mediterranean pull factors are not the issue the humanity of the individuals are the fundamental issue so I basically basically agree with the view that you expressed over here now and you Paul Colgan at UTV Ireland much of a case does Ireland and Europe have to answer with regards to global tax avoidance presumably a lot of the people who make their way to Europe come from countries that have been deprived tax-euros sort of being sheltered elsewhere and secondly you're concerned about the European project at the moment we have the Irish government pitched against the European commission accusations are being made that the European commission is cozying up to the big guys to the detriment of the little guys clearly there's fishers there do you have any thoughts on either of those two things it's a neat way of getting the issue of Apple into a discussion on migration but it won't work because I don't know anybody of the vast numbers that I've met in camps who are there because they're avoiding tax but I know the point you're trying to make and forward from our second point with the European project well I think that that's deeply dangerous as I've said earlier for Ireland there are terrible tensions I think that we must in the Brexit debate and every other debate we should recognize that our fundamental interest is not the accommodation of anybody much though we would like Britain to be in a reasonable position vis-a-vis functioning economically with us our fundamental interest has to be European integration and if that requires us to take a different position on for an example free movement of people then we should do it I think that has to be our fundamental position okay Tim the next question that was coming from here okay thank you very much certainly thank you I'm currently chair of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racism but I've long since and I've met you on a number of occasions in that regard being involved with migration and refugee issues I'd like to thank you for the work that you've done and I'd also like to commend David and his colleagues for the work they've done two comments and three questions first of all I agree fully with you that this is a very challenging time and part of the challenge is as you say acknowledging that the migration flows and even the refugee flows and displaced people mostly move within the same region often within the same country and I think there's a huge need for all of the politicians globally to reiterate that. Secondly you answered Alan Duke's very well but I'm very conscious from the work I do globally of the mixed flows I agree with you about maintaining the distinction between refugees and migrants because of the 51 convention and the way in which it's flouted in a number of places but there are mixed flows and I think the fundamental three very brief questions firstly I appreciate your concern with values but I'm fundamentally concerned given the difficulties that people like David and his colleagues had in negotiation the concluding documents for the 19th of September I'm fundamentally concerned and I'd like to ask you how you see it happening that the values we have globally and by those I mean the values that are in the treaties that all our countries have signed up to. How can you see us making sure that those values they're in CERD, they're in CEDAW they're in all of the treaties about women, about children, about economic, social and cultural rights how do we make those stand up and then my last question is I agree with you about Ireland and the European Union but is there not a case also sometimes for us taking an independent stand maybe and trying to lead from in front rather than waiting for everybody else to come with us and could we also go back to good work that was done here after we signed up to a national action plan against racism which I had some association and after we began to do things in a way that made sense from which the world outcomes. Thank you. Well first of all if we've an issue on which we could lead I have no objection to our leading and I think David has played a role in that and in my own little way I hope I have done too and you can do it but we shouldn't get beyond ourselves either because in the end of the day you have to bring others with you and the intergovernmental process that is the UN is full of flaws, it's full of deficiencies but it's the only thing we've got and it's the only thing we will ever have so we have to try to support it I would like and I hope that we have a very active leadership in the UN which whilst it doesn't have a power of initiative as a commission does has a power to lead and I hope that we will be in close connection with that leadership and hopefully it will play a real role now I'm getting too bloody old I can't remember what the other questions were. The only way you can keep values and the only way that that can work is through two external forces media great correspondence who can make a real impression and effect and NGOs and NGOs I think are a crucially important part in this and NGOs which I'm a bit involved with the ICMC have to also balance political reality with their own constituents who may sometimes want them to go too far in articulating something which actually will alienate those who you need to bring with you so it's a difficult position but I think NGOs are great now I think here we'll get in straight across Hello my name is Alex Piggat and I don't represent anybody but you mentioned the importance of institutions in the start and in particular the in terms of the United Nations preamble to the Charter it says that what the United Nations is supposed to do is to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war while the United Nations does seem to do a lot of good work in terms of what are we going to do with refugees and how are we going to develop and the climate change and so on and so forth that is the primary goal of the United Nations but maybe that's the reason that the general population across Europe just sees this refugees coming and our migrants coming and looking to the leadership of the world which is where that's the United Nations position that's what they they're not doing the job that they were set up to do it's what it appears so what do you think is the answer to that well the UN is a strange construction I only did it once but I addressed the Security Council once and you see the big boys sitting around the table and at the end of the day it's better probably to have them sitting around the table than to abolish the Security Council because the effect of abolishing the Security Council would I think be the abolition of the UN as a viable organization so it's a very difficult job you could also look at the EU and say that the EU is in terrible problems today and you saw the election results yesterday in Germany because of the perceived complicity of the EU crisis but if there's a failure in the part of the EU it's the failure of the countries that I've mentioned to accept a solidarity capacity and involvement that can make it work and to blame Brussels is a bit much I think so I think we just have to struggle on with the institutions we have okay just two there thank you Peter for a very powerful and challenging presentation I'm Philip Carney from the Antarctica Climate Change committee chairing that committee and thanks for the plug for the NGO sector in your presentation you will refer to natural disasters cataclysms you seem to avoid the term climate I don't think it occurred it's there in the subtext but I would appreciate if you address that more directly we know that it's a factor in say it's likely to be a much bigger factor in the future in Africa so I'd appreciate if you'd address it more directly no it was actually although it may have been unspoken by me climate change was exactly one of the things I was talking about when I said that people may have to leave their countries for other reasons which are just as challenging and dangerous to them as war and climate change and its effects might be one of them Bangladesh recently a huge proportion of the land of Bangladesh is below sea level it's an evolving potential catastrophe so I agree with you Michael Foley from the School of Media and DIT you mentioned the same breath as NGOs you mentioned the media as well I'm just wondering you who presumably are looking at the media throughout Europe for instance how well or not you understand the issues and how far has say the negative attitudes in parts of Germany and Hungary and wherever how far and I know it's very hard to get cause and effect here but how far has maybe the fact that journalists don't understand the issues or have been very negative in there at least commentary has added to the sort of anti-refugee and migrant feelings in some parts of Europe well I think it's a huge point but I mean my own inability to read the media in a whole range of different countries doesn't qualify me to give an overall survey but if you take somebody somebody mentioned Kingsley the garden is very well informed on this issue I could name another a number of other print media sources in the same country who are toxic on the issue but they get toxic on me if I mention their names not too much as it is so I better be careful so I think the media are vitally important and they were vitally important there I bring up the subject again by their absence of critical analysis on Brexit which in time will show one last question quickly very quick my name is Bruna Chatapushich and I'm representing the Irish Serious Solidarity Movement Peter thank you so much for your presentation and all your work on this topic just in terms of what Ireland can do I mean we're very grateful that Ireland has committed to accept 4,000 people both through resettlement and relocation but there's still a residual of 600 people and one of the among all the concerns that Syrians in Ireland have both residents and refugees is family reunification and I know that this is one of the issues so much in terms of what the Irish government can do just to prevail upon them to grant Syrians in Ireland their at risk relatives in Syria and surrounding countries the right to protection here under the IRPP the International Refugee or the Irish Refugee Protection Program with the same rights as refugees here and also the refugees both Syrian and all refugees here just to ensure their rights to reunification with vulnerable extended family members this is a huge issue and it's going to be tightened up under the new International Refugee Protection Act and also there's going to be a 12 month limit even for members of nuclear families on their right to apply for reunification so what can be done in that I agree with you it's not a sufficient answer but I do I probably won't but you're right please Hi I'm Marissa Ryan from Oxfam and thanks to Peter and also to Michael and to David just a quick question regarding Ireland's role within Europe I agree that we do have potential to play a stronger role at the moment especially gearing up towards 2018 when the new compact agreed but for us one of the disturbing parts of the summit was that there was a failure to agree concrete actions so going towards the summit if you were Francis Fitzgerald or whoever represents Ireland at the summit what do you think will be necessary for Ireland to commit to if we're to be seen as a more responsible player and therefore able to negotiate better at EU level to actually improve the situation from here well the negotiated outcome document was that it has many merits it does not have the merit of sufficient concrete actions and the question really was did we kick the ball off in terms of 2018 with a ringing endorsement of principles or did we get specifics into it I should say David particularly had a role in this I think what was done and not everybody still agrees with it was as good as could be got but I agree with you I mean taking a percentage of the total number of refugees each year in committing the global community to share them would have been a good thing but we had to get the line pulled across the line and that's the issue so it's I agree basically with the point that you're making I just want to express on all of our behalf our deep thanks to Peter he referenced the summit on the 19th of September high level summit on the issue of migrants let's note that as to whether we will be speaking up with that I think the mood of which he spoke was somber he comes across obviously as a moralist and I think a voice like that has got to be articulated at this present time he is calling on our society our government to be heard of course to be heard you have to speak properly heard you have to speak up and we'd better do all of that I think we would be very greatly I think stimulated and indeed inspired by his words not just by his words but by his demeanor the way in which he has conducted himself here today and obviously the deep concerns that he has for a whole range of issues but also the deep passion that he has particularly for refugees his final comments about the future of Europe need to be reflected upon here in this house I don't think that we have faced such an existential threat to the European Union as we currently do this very moment I think for the reasons that he articulated so well it's been a very broad agenda as you can see as it has addressed and it emphasises the interconnectedness of so many different huge issues as of the moment we're thankful to Irish aid for having enabled us to have the opportunity to hear him and to work with him yet again and I'm happy to say that we have agreed on principle that he will return here in November when he'll be talking about a major report in this whole area and in the meantime all we can all do and I do so affectionately myself is to wish him well just to close the proceedings I'd like to ask our ambassador to the UN David Donahoe just to talk about one or two things that he's been doing himself but also to put today's event in context David Thank you very much Brendan, thank you to the institute I suppose I just wanted to say from the vantage point of the UN that Peter Southerland's role I think is finally being vindicated in the summit which would take place on the 19th of September the content of that summit is not perfect there were many ways in which I and my colleagues would have liked to see it go further but I think Michael mentioned at the beginning he mentioned that Peter in a way was a lone voice for a long time and I can see that that over many years Peter was the only voice basically but behind the scenes he was building up remarkable momentum and I know that the very idea of a conference which would examine these issues at the global level it goes back to Peter so I think that he has been he's finally getting the recognition within the UN system which he thoroughly deserves he of course internationally has been a remarkable advocate for migrants for a whole range of issues including migrants and his own passionate advocacy has been has won a huge respect but I'm glad that within the UN finally the work he has been doing behind the scenes is bearing fruit in the conference which will happen on the 19th of September I'll just say that I echo very much the tribute page the work of NGOs I've benefited greatly in New York from the input of NGOs a number of whom are represented here both in relation to the sustainable development goals negotiations and in relation to the migration and refugee negotiations which in many ways were more difficult I have to say so in framing the initial draft of the document for the 19th of September I've benefited hugely from the clear moral positions taken by many NGOs both Irish and international and on the very issue that Peter referred to the issue of children in detention on that type of issue we were guided very much by what NGOs have been saying inevitably if you have 193 member states whom you have to get over the line and not all of those would be guided by liberal values to put it mildly then there will be some dilution I would like to think that the dilution isn't too extreme obviously as sort of part author I hope that is not too extreme but I think if one stands back from it there is enough in this document which will be issued by all the heads of state and government on the 19th of September there was enough to show that the will in future be a more humane a more compassionate regime to support both refugees and migrants the key phrase uses large movements large movements of refugees and migrants and indeed somebody referred to mixed flows that is a very important point and that is one reason why the summit is going to address for the first time ever the challenges represented both by refugees and migrants because many of them find themselves in so called mixed flows and increasingly we have to address these challenges together it is I think the case that the sanctity of the 1951 refugee convention will be reinforced by the 19th of September summit at the same time there is a greater emphasis on the need for migration to be given a similarly binding legal framework and the process to which Peter referred is one which will end up in the articulation of a new global compact on migrants or on migration in 2018 so much of the detail which we weren't able to capture in these negotiations now in order to get a document agreed by all much of that detail will be addressed in the negotiations over the next two years leading to this specific compact on migration and in that Peter a special representative will be playing a key role so those are really just a few comments I thank the institute for having invited Peter and given us all an opportunity to mark his own achievements and to contribute to this debate. Thanks Penny