Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister told the Joint Committee on Justice and Equality yesterday that Ireland's participation in the current ISF, which started in 2014 and will run until 2020, "has enabled high-volume investments, especially in IT systems, from which Ireland has benefitted". He also said "An Garda Síochána acts as both the responsible authority and the audit authority" for the expenditure of the internal security fund. Alarm bells ring when we hear IT systems, An Garda Síochána and audits being mentioned in the same sentence.

As I have pointed out on multiple occasions, there are serious problems with the functioning, value for money and procurement of the Garda's IT systems. I would like to ask a question about EU funding. Will the Minister confirm whether all external expenditure from the ISF between 2014 and 2020 was tendered for? An audit of Garda IT expenditure that was carried out in 2017 warned that the lack of expenditure controls may not satisfy the European Commission. In April of this year, I asked the Garda chief administrative officer, Mr. Joe Nugent, about certain EU projects that had been awarded to Accenture. I referred specifically to the EURODAC project in 2016, the Prüm project in 2017 and the Schengen information project in 2016. Mr. Nugent confirmed that neither the Prüm project nor the EURODAC project had been tendered for. It is not 100% clear whether this funding came from the ISF or from another EU fund. Will the Minister confirm which fund it came from? Is he concerned that we are using EU funding for IT systems without tendering for those projects.

When Deputy O'Callaghan addressed the House on behalf of Fianna Fáil, he said that the people in various places in Europe that have been attacked by terrorists are entitled to be protected.

I am not one bit surprised by the Fianna Fáil position. I am a bit disappointed that Sinn Féin is not opposing this motion because I believe it is absolute rubbish. Does Fianna Fáil believe the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Palestine and Syria are not entitled to have their lives protected? We are doing the opposite of protecting these people. One reason for the terrorism in Europe in the past couple years is that we are bombing the living daylights out of these communities.

In a survey in Paris about three months after the attacks in that city, the French people indicated by way of a huge majority that they wanted the French Government to stop bombing the homes of people in Muslim countries. Every time one drops a bomb on these people, it makes matters worse. The European Union seems okay with it. The Irish Government does not seem to have a problem with it either given that it allows the US military to use Shannon Airport. We are facilitating the dropping of bombs on people. More than 33 million people have been displaced by bombing, mostly driven by the United States and supported in the main by France and Britain. Unfortunately, we are also complicit. If we want to stop terrorism in Europe, why not stop bombing homes? Every time one drops a bomb and kills a member of a family, one inspires 20 to 30 individuals who are prepared to die for a ridiculous cause. We do not agree with any form of terrorism. We want the people of Europe to feel safe. One of the best ways of doing that is to stop bombing these people.

See this speech in context