Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

In all of these matters we have to be led by the people who went through the experience. The voices of the victims and those campaigning on their behalf have to be respected. As I understand it, the Westbank Orphanage and other Protestant institutions have not been included. They need to be included. Similarly, I support the calls regarding the Magdalen laundries. The Taoiseach should heed these calls. While I accept the point about the commission looking at the overall picture before moving on to the issue of redress and so on, there has be a clear commitment that there will be redress. There is no doubt whatsoever that the people who passed through these institutions were wronged and robbed of their identities in many cases and there has to be a clear commitment that there will be redress and that people will have the right to recover identities stolen from them.

I refer to the issues the Taoiseach plans to raise when he meets religious leaders from the Muslim community. While decent, moral, sentient human beings were outraged and condemned the appalling killings in theCharlie Hebdooffices in Paris, we are witnessing a worrying reaction - I am glad to say for the most part not in this country - in much of Europe where there has been a rise in Islamophobia with the Muslim community as a whole being demonised for the actions of a tiny group of extremists who happen to be Muslims as if there is some connection between Islam in general and the unspeakable actions that took place in theCharlie Hebdooffices. We have to absolutely nail that Islamophobia because if it is allowed to gain currency, it will make more likely atrocities such as the ones we witnessed and fuel the growth of extremist groups.

I read the personal story of one of the people involved in France. She comes from an Algerian background and at one stage changed her name to make it sound more French but then switched in the other direction to become an ultra-Islamacist. There has been serious growth on the far right, in racism and Islamophobia in France and one action, as misguided and stupid as it was, means that people faced with such racism may embrace extreme forms of what they consider to be their religious identity which may lead to similar carnage to that seen in the Charlie Hebdooffices. It is vitally important that we in Ireland are a voice in Europe to say, however we react to and deal with the causes of the attacks on these offices, it must not be by demonising in a racist way or generalising about the Muslim community. It makes as much sense to blame Muslims in general for what happened in these offices as it does to blame all Christians for the shooting of John Lennon or some of the atrocities that have taken place in the United States at the hands of fringe, right-wing and ultra-Christian groups. We would not blame all Christians for them or even make a connection with Christianity as a whole, but Islamophobia and the demonisation of the Muslim community are gaining currency in an alarming way in Europe.

When the Taoiseach has met leaders of the Muslim community, I would like to receive a report. They have expressed concerns about this issue and it is important that we in Ireland take a clear and principled stand against the worrying rise of Islamophobia which is not the answer to the awful episode in Paris.

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