Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There have been many questions asked and we all fully appreciate the work being done by aid agencies, as well as the courage shown in keeping the issue to the fore and getting involved, as members have noted. We must all learn from the issues. Confilcts of this nature come up again and again, and in the past we have seen war in Bosnia and Iraq. There are sensitivities which accompany involvement in the internal affairs of a country, as we know from what has happened with the UN Security Council and a failure to get agreement to do anything. It has been a key factor. Whether we learn from that remains to be seen.

We have discussed this many times and there must be a sequence of events that can be triggered automatically when a crisis like this occurs that involves serious human rights abuse, famine or starvation as a result of war, even an internal war. There must be some means of addressing the problem, and secure corridors have been referred to. We know from the Bosnian experience that safe havens are not always safe.