Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

There could hardly have been a more blatant demonstration of the blindness of the warmongers in this House as when the leaders of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael were crying war crimes against Russia and the Syrian Government last week. When the US led coalition started bombing the daylights out of Syria in September 2014, Deputies had nothing to say, even though the death toll tripled almost immediately. As our trade partner Saudi Arabia, and friends, continue to do daily war crimes in Yemen, indiscriminately killing civilians with tanks, combat aircraft, air to ground missiles, white phosphorous and cluster bombs, sold to them by the United States, Deputies say nothing. The Russians followed in to Syria - about one year after the French and US involvement - in order to boost their friend Bashar al-Assad. We have never, ever defended the Russian position, but neither will we defend the United States', the French or the Saudi position in Syria. I find it nauseating that people in this House will actually select who they will criticise of those who are bombing any country. As a neutral State that does not want to take part in war we should be criticising anyone who bombs anywhere. Last week the Unites States' war in Afghanistan was 15 years old. I was at a commemoration for it in Shannon on Sunday. Ireland has been with the United States every step of the way, bending over backwards for the US war machine. A group of physicists in the United States - because the US military does not count bodies, it is all just collateral damage - have researched statistics that show that up to 2.1 million civilians have been killed by the United States military since 2001 in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is horrific and Ireland has helped the United States with the use of Shannon Airport. Today, 1,000 unaccompanied minors face eviction from Calais and we are not prepared to help them. I recall Members saying in the House that unaccompanied minors would be picked out for special concern, but we have done nothing about them. To the best of my knowledge there has been just one unaccompanied minor brought in to Ireland in the last two years.

Where do these unaccompanied minors come from? Only from countries the US has bombed the living daylights out of, and we allowed the US to use Shannon Airport to do so. Now we are not prepared to do anything for these people. The French have admitted they are about to clear the southern side of the camp in Calais. They cleared the northern side in the spring and 129 unaccompanied minors disappeared. I do not want to go into where we suspect they may have ended up. It is horrific. There are more than 1,000 of them in the camp and the southern side of the camp is about to be cleared by the French, despite the fact that up to eight NGOs in France are trying to take legal action to stop it. Several weeks ago, I heard the Minister state here that it was a good idea to clear the camp. It is horrific. The British have agreed to take in 300 and the French state they have capacity to cope with 276 of these minors. Can Ireland step up to the mark and do something? Can we play some sort of a role, given that we do not have clean hands because of our facilitation of Shannon Airport to the US military? I ask the Minister of State to talk to the people who make the decisions.

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