Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

While we could all sign up to the aspirations set out in the Geneva communiqué of 2012, they are a million miles away from the reality on the ground in Syria. The communiqué refers to a constitutional process and calls for a democratic Syria, yet it is no longer certain that Syria exists as a country. It is certainly not multiethnic or multi-religious in character and is falling apart in the most traumatic way. One year after the communiqué was issued, the United States and other countries decided to arm the Syrian opposition, including jihadists. This decision contributed to the problems being experienced by the country and I expect that, in retrospect, the countries in question regret their decision given the crisis it helped to spawn. This vindicates our point that one cannot hope for good to come from external military intervention in such conflicts. Only bad things come from such an approach, of which the mushrooming of ISIS has been a by-product. Therefore, I strongly support the call that Ireland, as a supposedly neutral country, should be arguing for an end to both the arms that are going in from external sources and the bombs that are being dropped, as well as a facilitation of peace on the ground.

See this speech in context