Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

I am delighted to have the opportunity of speaking on the Adjournment and I am equally pleased that the Minister of State with responsibility for European Affairs, Deputy Roche, is present.

The assassination of the Hamas leader, Mahmoud al Mabhouh, on 20 January in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates has had serious repercussions in Ireland and worldwide. Initially, it was thought that the assassination squad consisted of five people using fake passports. Now it transpires that there were at least 26 involved. There were at least six fake Irish passports and a further 20 fake passports of British, German, French and now Australian citizens.

The recent disclosure that the passport identities of Australian citizens were stolen has resulted in the most forceful response to date. The Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs immediately summoned the Israeli ambassador and the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, went on the national and international media and announced that if the use or forgery of Australian passports was demonstrated to have been sponsored or condoned by Israeli officials or agencies, then Israel would be deemed to be an unfriendly country. That was putting it very forthrightly.

Neither Ireland nor the EU Foreign Affairs Ministers meeting during the week has been so forthright. The Israeli ambassador to Ireland and the Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister have both refused to deny or confirm that the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, was involved. The statement emanating from the meeting of the EU Foreign Ministers during the week made no mention at all of the prime suspect, Israel. The statement by Catherine Ashton, the new High Representative for Foreign Affairs, condemning the killing as not "conducive" to peace and stability in the Middle East was simply ridiculous. No further action has been taken by Ireland or the EU, and to my mind that is not good enough.

I believe that there should be a full scale debate in the Dáil next week on the serious threat to the integrity of the Irish passport and the welfare of Irish citizens travelling abroad to give Deputies from all sides of the House an opportunity to express their views in the matter. Ireland should send a special Garda investigation team to Dubai to investigate at first hand the role of the fake Irish passports in the assassination there. Ireland did that when on 5 or 6 January we had the exercise in explosives which failed. The Slovakian authorities were guilty of some very poor efforts in testing explosives, which eventually ended up in the Irish jurisdiction. We spent a special investigation team to look into the matter and are awaiting its report. the same should be done as regards the assassination in Dubai. We should send a special Garda investigation team there too.

The authorities in the United Arab Emirates have stated that they are 99% certain that Israel and Mossad were behind the assassination. The Taoiseach should inform the Israeli ambassador that without a categorical denial of involvement Ireland can no longer consider Israel to be a friendly country, with all the implications that would have for travel, trade and diplomatic relations. Finally, in the long term we should look into the whole area of passports, particularly in view of the widespread forgery of passports internationally. An international treaty should be drawn up under the auspices of the United Nations which would provide for the proper use and protection of passports. Ireland should sponsor that treaty, in the event.

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