Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The incident took place in the wider context of a continuing deterioration of the security situation in Afghanistan. Conflict-related civilian deaths in the first quarter of 2018 are especially alarming. The largest single spike in civilian casualties occurred during a ten-day period in January when Taliban and Daesh forces separately attached numerous targets in Kabul killing more than 140 people and wounding hundreds. Ireland condemns these terrorist attacks in the strongest possible terms.

There is an obligation on the Afghan Government to try to protect its citizens. To do that, the Afghan Government must have military capacity. The idea should be to allow the Government in Afghanistan to protect itself and its civilians and I am unsure whether disarming it would be a good strategy.

Deputy Crowe should not forget where Afghanistan was before US intervention there. It was a country run by the Taliban. It was a country that had international training camps for terrorists who were sent throughout the world to wreak havoc. Let us not pretend that foreign intervention has caused the carnage in Afghanistan. Clearly, there are complications with it, but extremist thinking and terrorists are the causes of havoc in Afghanistan. We have to support the Afghan Government to protect its people.

See this speech in context