Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I, too, am delighted to get the opportunity to speak on this important issue. We have to deal with several areas. The first is the ongoing refugee and migrant crisis. I salute the brave work of the members of the Naval Service. Those involved are risking their lives in this great humanitarian mission. I salute all the NGOs, including Médecins Sans Frontières. I salute all those involved who are so concerned and anxious about what is happening there. I have seen it beamed on our television screens. I saw a documentary recently and I compliment those who made it.

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It is very important because one has to see it. A picture is worth a thousand words. In recent parliamentary questions, I have asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if he raised at European Council level the issue of the genocide and persecution of Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East. In that I include minority Muslim religions as well because they are being fiercely persecuted, as indeed are the Yazidi tribe. The Minister, Deputy Flanagan, assured me that Ireland has repeatedly addressed the question of the protection of Christians and other religious minorities in Syria and Iraq in particular in meetings and engagements at both the EU and the UN. I have no doubt that he has. I salute him for that and thank him.

The Minister also mentioned that Ireland has raised our concerns over the protection of minority populations, including Christians, at the UN Human Rights Council. I have no doubt that he has. However, I am appalled that the persecution and total wipeout of Christianity, and indeed any groups, no matter who they are, whether Christian, a Muslim minority, the Yazidi tribe, the Kurds previously or any other group, that do not agree with the very strong and powerful Muslim group, has been going on for so long now. I do not know why the international community has not taken some steps against this.

Deputy Wallace was critical of the US for different reasons. There were the invasions by the Americans and the other allies. They bombed the hell out of the place. Before that happened, under Saddam, Gaddafi and the other rulers, even in Syria, the Christians were allowed to practice. I have gone out to Lebanon and met refugees and the head of the Coptic Church. I spent three days there with Deputy Grealish and Senator Rónán Mullen. We visited the camps. They told us that while they did not have impunity, they did have total freedom to practise their religions, whatever beliefs they were, under those appalling regimes, as we knew they were and as they were in many other areas. Now, those groups are totally persecuted. Any protections they had have been diminished greatly and they are being obliterated.

I spent three days during each of the last three summers in Rome at an international conference with colleagues from the Oireachtas. When we met the Holy Father and presented our position paper to him, he appealed to us to go back to our parliaments and raise this issue. It is a massive issue that he has been desperately concerned about. We did not even have a meaningful debate about it in this Parliament, despite my trying to raise it numerous times with the Taoiseach and the Ministers of the previous and current Governments. Deputy Grealish and I are forced at this stage to submit a Topical Issue matter about the persecution of Christians as this is the only way I can get a debate on it in the House. I am certainly not diminishing the persecution of the other groups as well. I am extremely concerned at the lethargy and the blind eye being turned to what is going on. It is going to destabilise the whole world. They have been there for centuries and they are now being slaughtered, tortured and wiped out. If they do not convert to Islam within 24 hours or leave, they are mercilessly executed. The people I met in the camps were only old grannies, women or young children under the age of ten, in many cases. It is sad that all the rest of the men and young women were either murdered or gone to fight in the war. That is not a good situation.

We should be doing much more in the EU. I saluted the Naval Service and that, but that is only intervening at the very last moment. The refugees are so desperate to escape the persecution, they will get on to those dinghies and other makeshift boats knowing the dangers of it. I have asked them why they would ever contemplate doing that, as it is such a risk. They said that it would be far easier an option to drown in the sea than to be slaughtered, persecuted and tortured. For people with intelligence to be driven to going on those overcrowded boats, with the extortion, the money racket, the smuggling and the many children and babies that have been lost, it is just horrific. The torture at home is just too much for them. An bhfuil am agam fós?

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