Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

According to the European Council's website, among the subjects to be discussed in Brussels will be the exchange of information on terrorism financing, controls at external borders, the conditions that lead to terrorism, the prevention of radicalisation and violent extremism, and counter-terrorism co-operation with third countries. It will be interesting to see what comes of the discussion. All of these headings conjure up situations and truths in my mind, but I am sure the interpretations and proposals that will be exchanged in Brussels will have very tenuous ties to reality. I say this because the Government has repeatedly failed to look at the situation in the Middle East with much clarity or objectivity. It refused to recognise that Ireland, by allowing Shannon Airport to be used as a forward air base for the American military, was complicit in the devastation and destruction caused in the region and has played a serious part in the rise of ISIS, the deaths of close to 2 million civilians and the displacement of millions more. If the Government refuses to recognise the obvious truth, how can it possibly contribute anything meaningful to the discussion?

When the European Council talks about the conditions that lead to terrorism, is it going to acknowledge that every act of war by the West and its allies and every new supporter of the US-led bombing campaign against ISIS only confirms Islamic State's message that Muslims are under attack by the West and plays into its hands? When the Council talks about counter-terrorism co-operation with third countries, is it going to address the problem with Turkey? President Erdoğan vowed to punish the editor of a newspaper that had published video footage which it was said showed the Turkish state intelligence agency helping to send weapons to Syria. This would lead one to think Turkey was turning a blind eye to the smuggling of arms into Syria for Islamic State. We already know that Turkey has facilitated ISIS in selling oil on world markets.

It is well known that any chance of ISIS being beaten in the region will be through local forces and the ones who are most effective are the Kurds, yet these are the people Turkey is bombing the living daylights out of every chance it gets. It is going to be difficult to have a coherent policy if the European Union is going to continue to entertain Turkey's role and tolerate what it is up to because it is a serious problem for the entire region. People are very reluctant to call it as it is. It was not insignificant that Turkey took down a Russian warplane that happened to be attacking ISIS positions.

We have been harping on for a long time about the fruitlessness of violence and bombing. I find it difficult to listen to people here talk about refugees while continuing to support US foreign policy, continuing to allow Shannon Airport to be used as a US military base and continuing to refuse to search aeroplanes. International law is being breached on a regular basis, but we ignore it. When Fine Gael and the Labour Party were in opposition, they had concerns about this, but they dropped them when they got into power. Surely, this leads to serious disillusionment about how politics works.

The idea that this is still a neutral country is nonsense. I do not agree with what Russia did in Ukraine and, as Deputy Micheál Martin stated, no one should get away with it. However, are we going to turn a blind eye to the fact that the Americans have killed close to 2 million civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan? They invaded these countries and had the support of the Government in doing so. In 2014 in how many countries did the United States engage in military operations? The answer is 130. There are fewer than 200 countries in the world, yet it carried out military exercises in 130 of them. The world has gone mad. Ireland has abandoned its neutral position. We should be working for peace and saying "No" to war.

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