Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Higgins has delivered a history lecture. Obviously, the process of colonisation over many hundreds of years has led to bloody warfare and inter-country and inter-tribal wars on so many occasions. History speaks for itself. The Deputy will recall the discussions that took place in 1938 about the protection of the Jewish people and that all the countries in Europe represented at Évian said that this should happen and spoke about what they were prepared to do. When Hitler invaded the Sudetenland in 1939, 160,000 to 200,000 people were displaced. During the Holocaust commemorative ceremony at the Mansion House last week, which was attended by the Ceann Comhairle, one of the graphic pictures depicted the MS St. Louis, a transport ship that left for the US with 900 passengers who were eventually refused entry to that country and had to return to Europe. Another ship went to Turkey with 700 people, most of whom drowned. History repeats itself in so many ways.

We cannot go back. We must deal with the situation as it obtains and it is exceptionally difficult, be it from an historical, a tribal or a religious point of view. I recall the comments of Hans Blix who said that if he had another three or four months and was allowed to finish his report, he could prove that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. That did not happen. The Deputy rightly points out what he calls politically crazed individuals. How does this happen? If young people in particular are left to fester in ghettoes or enclaves, they will not emerge from them as model citizens after 20 years. It does not work that way with human nature and pressure, resentment, frustration and anger can lead to all kinds of difficulties, including violence or terrorist activities such as those we have witnessed on the Continent in recent times. This issue is difficult to resolve in terms of integration and the opportunities or capacity to integrate people properly that should exist. Clearly, it is a lesson that has been learned to a great extent in terms of a missed opportunity to at least attempt to bring new citizenship with the mainstream and not have this situation arise.

We will not see the pullout of the different countries and powers to which the Deputy referred. International politics, diplomacy and interests will not shift just like that. People are being bombed, murdered, mutilated and beheaded and others are migrating in huge numbers to the European mainland in order to get away from what is happening in Syria. They are coming up to Libya from the Horn of Africa, Eritrea, Mali and other places in huge numbers and seeking the opportunity to come to Europe.

The Deputy is a good historian. The lessons of history are never learned easily and it requires strong leadership and the capacity to bring very polarised people together with a common interest. Unfortunately, it will not happen that easily. We can point to our own troubled history as a model of what must apply in order to bring people together. When George Mitchell was sent here by former US President Bill Clinton, who would have thought that an agreement would be reached that would still be in place almost 30 years later? There is no point in saying that it cannot be done, cannot be faced into or that an outcome cannot be arrived at. Of course, all of this can happen. What does anybody want to do at the end of day except have the opportunity to live in peace? Those men, women and children we see on television screens every day and night of the week have the same aspirations and as a result of the situation that obtain in their home countries, they give up everything and move to places that are safer for them and their children. If international diplomacy and politics and the UN are to mean anything, then the latter must use all its resources and facilities to bring about a better situation for the millions of people involved. Unfortunately, crises move from place to place, from year to year and from period to period. Each one requires enormous resolve from so many international countries. We no longer hear about the Crimea, eastern Ukraine and other areas where there is serious pressure. However, when successive human catastrophes occur, matters come into sharp focus in the context of the global situation. This is the case with regard to the difficulties in Syria and surrounding countries such as Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Iran. Those difficulties have consequences for international politics. Obviously, the money spent on all the conflicts in question would in most cases be sufficient to repair the infrastructures of the countries involved. However, that does not reflect the reality. We must focus on what is possible. If the lessons of history can teach us what went wrong, they can also teach us how to go about getting it right.

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