Eric Byrne (Dublin South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the delegation and applaud the work they do. They are very brave people. I think I may have met some of their people in Columbia also in very poor conditions. I congratulate them on their Christian enthusiasm.

As a Christian organisation, could the witnesses offer us an opinion as to whether the Christian population is in decline in this important religious region of the Middle East? Why might that be?

I think Ms Derbyshire may have said that things are getting worse in the West Bank, which is controlled by Fatah. Let us say Fatah is gone and Hamas is gone and we are left with the Palestinian Authority. While I will be voting in support of Ireland recognising a Palestinian State, I would like to ask whether the witnesses believe the Palestinians in the new authority are unified sufficiently to be able to run a state?

The witnesses speak in terms of settlers, or do they speak in terms of religious settlers? Who are they? Are they people moving to better accommodation from the existing Jewish Israeli population or are they settlers being brought in from Ethiopia, Russia, Lithuania, Moldova or wherever?

It contributes to my frustration when we are looking for this honest broker - Councillor Costello mentioned countries like Brazil - that in the real world surely it has got to be accepted that the power brokers are America and Germany. Much as we would like to fly a flag on behalf of the Palestinians by granting recognition of their state, is it at this point a viable state run by a government of the Palestinian Authority?