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

I also wish to be associated with the sympathy expressed to the UK aid worker who unfortunately lost his life recently. In so doing, we should recognise the risks taken by all the staff at GOAL in the course of the work they do in places which are familiar to us by virtue of their work and the news media but which otherwise would remain distant from us.

To what extent is GOAL satisfied that together with all the other agencies, it can concentrate its best efforts in a way that will maximise the impact, and to what extent does Mr. Andrews believe that will be sufficient?

We speak about the issues of man-made disasters, be they war, climate change or whatever the case may be, here from time to time. In so far as war is concerned, for some unknown reason people across the globe begin to become restless every so often because after a period of peace and calm, there comes a time of war. It is a little like the saying there is a time to be born and a time to die. The number of events that are occurring and the degree of violence are disturbing. There are many situations where the level of violence has been ongoing but it is becoming more prevalent. I do not know what the reason for it is other than that history seems to repeat itself, tragically, again and again and lessons never seem to be learned by the upcoming generation. They always know better or pretend or think they do and inevitably find out that they do not when it is too late. The consequences of that, unfortunately, impact on people, the civilian populations, who pay the price, and women and children in particular pay a huge price.

Our comments must relate to the extent to which GOAL, along with others, can impact in that area as well. I do not know what can be done. We all deal with it in the course of our constituency work because we meet people from these areas who present us with information on a fairly regular basis and it is horrific. The witnesses are very much more conversant with those issues than we are. The question that arises is what influence can the international community bring to bear on the potential hot spots, other than by international peacekeeping forces and what they can do is limited as well, as we know from past experience. How can we improve that situation? It appears nothing can be done and that it is inevitable that huge loss of life and carnage takes place. Everybody condemns it and says these things should not happen but they continue to happen.