Michael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)

I am grateful for the Minister's reply and I share the Government's concern regarding the safety of personnel. I wish to ask a number of directly-related questions. It appears to me that both the present Minister and his predecessor laid great stress on the evolution of thinking at the United Nations, particularly in respect of the duty to protect. The duty to protect was a key block in the thinking of the former United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, whereby sovereignty could not be used to frustrate the right of a vulnerable population to life itself. It posed a great number of questions for those who had, for example, revised views on neutrality, sovereignty and so forth. I articulated the policy of the Labour Party to the effect that sovereignty could not be used as a shield to prevent the implications of the duty to protect. Does the Minister agree this has been fundamentally challenged by events in Sudan?

Two matters have been set in tension in this regard. I refer to the decision to refer President Bashir to the International Criminal Court, which is regarded by the representative bodies in the region as possibly unhelpful and which is being used as a trading pawn with regard to the question of allowing humanitarian organisations to return. One is left with a terrible choice, which is that to save 1 million people directly, 1.5 million people from immediate threat and 2.7 million displaced people, one must either suspend the conclusion of the International Criminal Court or resile from a commitment regarding a duty to protect at the level of the United Nations.

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