Seán Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)

I thank the Minister of State for his reply. All of us are interested in getting the discussions recommenced. I noted recently that President Mubarak of Egypt has been involved in discussions and as the Minister of State mentioned, Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief as she is called, also had a two-day meeting on the situation. I was heartened by a comment I think is worth pursuing. When speaking about the blockade, Catherine Ashton made the point that the crossings must be kept open to allow the flow of humanitarian aid, imports, exports and people continue. We need to enable children to go to school and ordinary people to reconstruct their homes and get on with their lives. We would all welcome that. The reply that came from the Israeli Foreign Minister to Catherine Ashton's point on the closure of the crossings was interesting. He said that the closure was imposed in an effort to stop the smuggling of arms into the Gaza Strip. He went on to say that if one wanted to bring about a lifting of the closure around Gaza, one should take responsibility and establish a strong, real and effective force to prevent smuggling.

This is a similar situation to one in which Ireland played a major part, namely, the reconstruction of the Lebanon. We had troops in the Lebanon and we know that region well. In fact, Irish troops are returning there now. I was Minister for Defence for some of the years the Irish troops were there and am aware they had a huge reputation in the region as peacekeepers. I am convinced that if the EU takes a more positive and active role, not one supporting the US -----

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