Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate that the Minister urged caution and made the point that further military action was unlikely to do any good and I welcome his comments in advance of the bombing in that regard. However, his points about the UN being paralysed do not add up. The rules are there for a reason. An inverted scenario would be the US and the UK using depleted uranium, for example, in the Middle East, the UN proposing action against them and Britain vetoing said action, followed by Russia bombing Portadown in the UK. Does the Tánaiste think that a bombing such as that would happen without him batting an eyelid and saying we cannot support it because the UN is paralysed?

It is utter nonsense. There is a legal process by which these attacks could be investigated but it was precisely in advance of that independent investigation laid out by law that those three countries struck. They are the ones, if one likes, who are belligerent in this matter and we should be doing a lot more to argue a neutral line.

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