Ann Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for her response. We must continue to raise this matter in our parliaments and we must keep it on all our agendas. I am calling for the reinstatement of UN monitors. Observatory missions, such as that based in London, are limited in scope and capacity to act.

Governments will be meeting between 17 and 19 October at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, to discuss children rights. The issue of children in the war in Syria should be raised at that assembly. The Save the Children campaign is calling for strident monitoring and recording of every crime against the children of Syria and that their perpetrators be held to account.

We can only keep trying. The Minister of State said a political solution is not in sight. In the absence of that, we must keep pushing humanitarian issues and try to alleviate the suffering of the most vulnerable in society, namely children.

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