Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is indisputable that all sides of the House condemn the role of the Assad regime. Before the war, that regime ruled by terror, brutality, torture and murder. The regime's response to peaceful demonstrations was a declaration of war on a significant section of its own people. Aleppo is a city that has been totally laid to the ground and is like Ground Zero in New York. It will be gone by Christmas. Putin's gangster capitalist regime stands indicted. The indiscriminate bombing, bunker bombs in civilian areas, deliberating targeting infrastructure to destroy water supplies, deliberately targeting hospitals and siege tactics to disrupt and deny food, water and medical facilities to civilians are all war crimes. Other parties indicted include Daesh or ISIS and the Al-Nusra Front who are also guilty of war crimes. They are forces that want to take society back to the Middle Ages. Where they have succeeded in taking territory, particularly Daesh, they have unleashed barbaric horror on the civilian population. Those using this conflict to fight a proxy war for influence and domination in the wider Middle East are also indicted. These parties include Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and, of course, the old reliables still playing Great Power politics - Great Britain, France, Russia and the US.

It is easy to stand up in this Chamber and condemn those involved in the conflict but what can we do to deal with them? We have to be neutral. That is the message coming out of this Chamber and the Minister should take that on board. All sides in the conflict should abide by international human rights law and put an end to all forms of bombing in Syria. The Irish Government should formally make known to all governments that have engaged in the bombing of Syria the Irish people's revulsion at their actions. The Irish Government should support the call from Prince Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, for the UN Security Council to without further delay adopt criteria to restrain members from using the veto when there are serious concerns that war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide may have been committed. The situation in Syria should be referred to the International Criminal Court. We must stop the use of Shannon Airport as a military airport and stop arms being sold to these countries.

I have one point to make about the 4,000 refugees we have committed to taking in. We have only taken in ten members of a family under that EU relocation programme. This must be moved on very quickly and we must nail our colours to the mast and take those women, children and families into this country who want to come here. We must actively engage in that.

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