Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I do not wish and I do not think most people would want to see the assets of the EU being used to fuel this conflict. However, indirectly, that is what sanctions are doing and, quite directly, that is what EU funding of the Libya deal is doing. It is using human beings as shields against its own hypocrisy and the refusal to allow desperately needy people arrive on our shores. Then it uses the excuse of the crises which our system has created as an excuse not to further help them.

We will support the motion although we wish to amend it on the question of sanctions. We also seek to recognise that this has been a proxy war by imperialist forces on all sides and condemn all sides. Leave the Syrian people to sort out their own issues just as it needed to happen in this country. To a large degree, it still needs to happen in this country. This is a lesson that the world has learned. Imperialist intervention worsens the situation; it does not help it.

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