Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for having had to leave to take a call. I welcome all the witnesses to the committee and I commend them for their tremendous work and commitment over many years. Ms D'Arcy may be doing this work for the longest time but Dr. John Lannon and Dr. Edward Horgan have gone above and beyond the call of duty in trying to safeguard, as they see it, and I agree with them, our neutrality in the very serious matter of war and military intervention. They have made enormous sacrifices to do this work. Very recently Ms D'Arcy was shamefully imprisoned for doing nothing more than wanting to uphold the idea of peace and neutrality. Let me say "Well done" to all of them.

I missed some of the earlier questions, but as I understand it, and perhaps the witnesses can confirm it for me, it is not the case that we want peace or we have a certain idea of neutrality and we do not believe the Government is living up to it, but the arguments the witnesses put forward are based on international law, human rights law and the obligations of the State authorities to investigate human rights abuses and breaches of the law. Those are very serious issues regardless of people's particular political views on American foreign policy or whatever else it might be. We have international obligations, as we have signed up to treaties, and to international definitions of neutrality and we are flouting them.

Similarly, An Garda Síochána for reasons that are not fully explained, does not seem to be responding to complaints about very serious issues in the way it should respond to any complaint that is made to it. Is that not the heart of the issue? That is the reason it is relevant to bring the issue to this committee. The job of this committee is to ensure the State complies with the law in terms of its obligations. It is a very serious matter that has to be investigated fully to find out if there is political interference. It seems to me that is what we are talking about. Is there political interference with the State carrying out its legal obligations to investigate very serious complaints on breaching conventions, treaties and laws that we should comply with. Would that be a fair summary of what the witnesses are saying?