Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The most important matter is the narrative for how we describe acts of terrorism. There can never be any justification - I do not quite agree with Deputy Mick Wallace's perspective - for slaughtering innocents and civilians in the manner in which they were slaughtered in Manchester. We have had experience of this in the past. The IRA campaign of bombing civilians was no different from what we witnessed in Manchester last week, including the bombings in Birmingham, Enniskillen and at La Mon. There can be no moral equivocation about which is worse. The fundamental difference between the two is that, in the case of the IRA, in motst cases the perpetrators made sure that they got away before many civilians were brutally slain for no justifiable reason.

I agree with Deputy Brendan Howlin that we cannot be complacent. We are a soft target, like many others. The raison d'êtreof ISIS operators is to hit where they can and to hit the softest target they possibly can. In the past, owing to what happened in Northern Ireland because of the IRA's campaign, we had much stronger security capacity.

That is my sense of it. Since the peace process, we have lost a lot of corporate intelligence and so on. We really need to recreate it in the context of the ISIS threat.

On the issue of having a separate crime and security agency, the Kathleen O'Toole commission should be asked to ascertain the optimal approach for us to intelligence and security. The battle against ISIS and others is about trying to counter extremism on the ground and in communities, which is very important, and also about having deep and good intelligence to avert atrocities. Are Irish citizens who return having fought in Iraq or Syria on behalf of ISIS tracked? Is there any penalty for those who participate with ISIS overseas? Are they just allowed back into the country? The Minister for Justice and Equality said in answering questions that it was known that up to 30 people had participated in Syria and Iraq. Can they just fly back in with no penalties? Do our laws need to be overhauled in that regard? We have to have zero tolerance of anybody who participates in such activity overseas and who has the freedom to come back and carry on as if life were normal.

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