John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of the Technical Group, I offer my condolences to the relatives of all those who were killed or injured in the abominable Paris attack. We also offer our condolences to the French people and the democratically elected Government of France.

Like many others in Ireland, I regularly visit France. I travel to Paris, Perpignan and Nantes and will continue to do so, as will many other Irish people. For those who see or use violence as a way of promoting a religious belief, an economic intention or an ideology, or as a way of subjugating people, history has shown that democracy has inevitably been triumphant. George Orwell once said that if liberty meant anything, it meant the right to tell people what they sometimes did not want to hear. If we are to deal with this dreaded organisation, ISIS or Daesh, we have to know what its origins are and why and how it came about because that is how we deal with all terrorist groups.

In 2003, after the invasion of Iraq, the Iraqi army was dismantled, Iraqi infrastructure was destroyed and a government was installed that was not responsive to the people. Hundreds of thousands were imprisoned, many of them innocent of the asserted crimes and many became radicalised. After that, the allies left Iraq to its fate. In 2006 ISIS was formed with the help of former Iraqi officers and in 2011 it entered Syria. The rebels in Syria fighting the Assad regime for which none of us has any time were armed by Jordan, the United States, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. It has now emerged that some American generals said they really did not know where the arms had gone to. We do, however, because we now know that many of them went to this abominable group, ISIS.

Tony Blair has said there probably would not be an ISIS if there had not been an invasion of Iraq. It is imperative for all democracies to deal with the foundations of terrorism and, in particular, how it is funded. The biggest funder of militant groups in the Middle East is Saudi Arabia which has funded Islamic militant groups such as Afghan Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba. In 2009 Hillary Clinton, in a private note that became public, urged diplomats to redouble their efforts to stop Gulf money reaching extremists in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Until we come to terms with the so-called democracies that fund some terrorist groups, we are at nothing. This has been the failure of very many governments in that we have not dealt with so-called allies who talk out of both sides of their mouths.

The Taoiseach knows that military action alone will not defeat terrorism. Countries where greed, avarice, poverty and repression abound are breeding grounds for young people who join military groups. I have been in many countries across the Middle East and seen the most appalling suffering. I have met people who have no hope and nothing to live for. These are the ones we must educate and deal with. History has shown what happens if we do not educate, do not deal with abject poverty and suffering and do not give people hope. I remember a song about a person who wakes in the morning with no reason for waking. I was in one country where there were no water, electricity and health services. I was told the only doctors and nurses who were being supplied were supplied by Al-Qaeda, that in one of the richest countries in the Middle East. If the terrorists continue to receive sympathy from people, they will be much harder to find and deal with. We must have people on our side and that means the responsible leaders of the world must show concern for all the people of the world who are subjugated and suffering abject poverty. As I said, groups such as ISIS will not win and have never won. History, from the time of Greek democracy to the present day, has shown that terrorists who seek to impose militarism on democracy have utterly failed. However, we must defeat them by means other than bombing and military action.

See this speech in context