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

We have all extended our sympathy. We could talk about the cultural and historical ties between France and Ireland - our revolutionary past, and our shared views on liberty, equality and fraternity - and the dreadful carnage we witnessed. We are also conscious that prior to the attacks in Paris there were a number of other attacks - for example, in a Shia area of Beirut, where 40 people were killed. There was also the Metrojet flight in Sinai, which was again claimed by ISIS or one of its offshoots, in which 219 Russians, four Ukrainians and one Belorussian were killed.

ISIS sees this as a great cultural war, a so-called clash of civilisations, and it is all about division. It is about division and separation; it is not about unity. As the ambassador mentioned, now is a time for unity. They want to isolate Muslims from the rest of us. They want to stereotype people all over the world. They were not concerned in the attacks in Paris about whether a person had a religion and who they supported or did not support; they just wanted to kill people. There is an onus on us. We can talk about those dreadful scenes, but there is also an onus on us to talk about how we can come together and come up with some solutions to those problems.

One of the clear difficulties is that France was very much at the forefront of support for the refugee crisis. There is a cartoon that sums it up. On one side is the European Union with its hand up. There is a female refugee in the middle, and there is an ISIS person on the other side with their famous knives, about to stick one in the refugee's back. Does that depict what we are going to do in Europe? Are we going to stigmatise all those people who are fleeing ISIS? What do we do about this?

The French President, Mr. Hollande, is to meet with the Russian President, Mr. Putin, this evening. What is France looking to do? Is it seeking unity across the board, or to reduce ISIS's military capacity, which everyone wants to see happening? Is it also about reducing its potential support? The ambassador mentioned the jihadists coming from Europe and so on. Is it also about those regimes that have been quietly supporting ISIS in the background and those that are potentially behind the formation or the ideology of ISIS? When are we going to address that? There was mention of multiculturalism and so on, and there are ongoing investigations into what is happening, who is behind the attacks, and so on. So far, French and Belgian people seem to be involved. What do we do with the societies and the areas in France those young people are coming from? How do we approach and undermine this ideology that everyone wants to see eliminated?