Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the GOAL representatives here today. Last Thursday, there was a briefing in the audio-visual room on Syria, which was attended by someone representing the Free Syrian Army. He gave his view on what was happening there. It is important for politicians to remain engaged but part of the difficulty is that the only information we are getting is from the media. Very little information is coming back to Ireland on what is happening.

Mr. Andrews referred to the use of chemical weapons. According to some media reports, it is alleged that chemical weapons are being used by the Free Syrian Army in Allepo. On Thursday, the FSA representative was asked about what was going on in the liberated area, and whether women were being forced to wear the chador or veil. Such reports are emanating from Aleppo. People also asked about the Free Syrian Army itself. On 11 April, Le Monde had a leading article on the make-up of the Free Syrian Army.

It said the main, experienced fighters who make up the bulk of the forces is Jabhat al-Nusra which is linked to al-Qaeda. There is a difficulty with the information. We will certainly stay engaged.

As there is a lack of independent information, we welcome the attendance of the witnesses today. In referring to "commonality of purpose", what is it they want the Government to do? Do they want the arms embargo to be lifted? Do they think the introduction of more weapons will help? A question that was put on Thursday was whether there was a pipeline of weapons from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The representative said there was not. According to the media, there are weapons going in from all sides, which is a difficulty, but more weapons will not resolve matters. I spoke to religious people earlier in the year who said they were looking for a third way, which it seems is not going to happen. They said many of the fighters were foreign not local. That is the difficulty. During the Iraq war, 1 million Iraqi people went to Syria. There are hundreds of thousands of Palestinians there. All of that is in the mix. What can we do aside from keeping ourselves abreast of events? What would a common position on lifting the arms embargo achieve? How would it make GOAL's job any easier? There was an allegation that aid was only going through government sources, but if one speaks to private aid groups, it is clear that aid is going to the liberated areas. People will not say that publicly. A representative of the Department of Foreign Affairs said adamantly that sides were not being taken but the aid was going through official channels such as the UN. That did not mean it was not going into non-government areas. Again, what can we do as Irish people?