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

On behalf of People Before Profit and the Anti-Austerity Alliance I extend our deepest sympathies and condolences to the families, friends and loved ones of the people who were massacred in Nice and those who were injured, some of whom are still in a critical state. The actions that claimed their lives were utterly despicable, unconscionable and unjustifiable in any terms. While we do not really know whether the attacker was a crazed lone individual influenced by the ideas of the so-called Islamic State or actually directed by it, we can be clear that that sort of hate and ideology offers absolutely nothing to humanity, the Muslim community, or any cause in North Africa, the Middle East or anywhere else in terms of trying to bring peace or justice to troubled parts of the world. It must be condemned in the most unequivocal terms. These tragedies continue and they seem to be multiplying. We need to begin to address how people can be driven to these acts of hatred and violence. While this is not the time to debate those things, we must resist any demonisation of the wider Muslim or North African communities in trying to understand or explain what happened.

We also have to address the deep sense of alienation and injustice that is felt by many people in north Africa, the Middle East and the north African and Muslim communities in France. That is not in any way to provide justification for this horrific attack, rather it recognises that alienation, frustration and a sense of injustice can be the seedbed for the sort of hatred we saw unleashed in Nice. If we do not want to see a repeat of these sorts of attacks, we all have a responsibility to begin to grapple with these issues.

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