Michael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)

My reason for tabling this question is based on the conflicting messages emerging about Afghanistan. I put it to the Minister that 2005 was the bloodiest year in recent times in Afghanistan, with 1,600 people dying in conflicts of one type or another, including more than 90 US soldiers and 31 aid workers. I do not intend to be deliberately negative, but in my question I asked whether the existing structures of the ISAF forces needed review and revision. On the one hand there is the merging of what is a competent military force with a reconstruction force. I suggest that this needs to be reviewed.

I can hardly accept that there has been such a great transition to normalcy if 52% of the gross domestic product comes from opium, equivalent to $2.7 billion. A great part of the country in the south and east is not under the control of any central authority. The handing in of arms, which was partially successful, has in fact been very piecemeal. This begs the question whether the structures should be reviewed. I ask these questions while conceding that some progress is notable, especially the participation of young girls in education, which the United Nations reports very positively. That taken out, however, the objective reports do not give a picture of anything other than a situation that is, perhaps, deteriorating.

See this speech in context