Criminal Justice (Smuggling of Persons) Bill 2021 [Seanad]: Committee Stage
Dail Éireann — 2021-11-24
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Brendan Howlin (LAB), Wexford

If I could make mention since the Minister of State has raised the issue, I was unaware when I came in that there had been a tragedy. I had been working in my office.
Last weekend, I went down to the memorial site in Drinagh Business Park because on 8 December it will be the 20th anniversary. Some local people have organised a commemorative event to mark 20 years since that awfulness of opening that truck container in the business park in Drinagh, just outside Wexford town, to find dead bodies, and living people too, in a horror situation. These were people from Turkey and from Kurdistan.
When one sees the names - I mentioned earlier in the passage of this Bill the screams of the relatives when that memorial was opened a year after the tragedy - it is seared in one's memory. As for the fact that is now repeating itself, we just have to do better. When we are enacting laws, we should have that desperation and horror in the back of our minds so that we can do better.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2021-11-24/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:49:52+00:00
Sitting date: 2021-11-24