Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It will not be the same without me.

There are many challenges facing Europe, many of which are connected. Two of those are the manner in which so many aspects of terrorism are carried out and global warming. There are many terrible things happening in the world in pursuit of oil. One does not need to be a rocket scientist to work out that the trouble in the Middle East has, from the beginning, been strongly linked to the pursuit of oil and the control of the price of it.

There have been terrible atrocities in Yemen, especially since 2015 although trouble began when, in 2011, the Yemeni people said no to their leadership because they did not like the neoliberal policies that President Ali Abdullah Saleh was trying to implement on behalf of the Saudis and the US. Sadly, former President Obama, the Saudis and the UN engaged in an effort at regime change by putting the unelected President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi in power in place of Saleh, whom the Yemeni had rejected. The Yemeni went on to reject Hadi and that led to the war which began in March 2015.

We are told by independent sources that there are now over 13 million people at risk of starvation which is a huge indictment not just on the countries involved in the conflict, which include France and the UK, but also of the European Union. Its failure to challenge seriously what has gone on in Yemen is nothing short of a total disgrace.

There is a chase for the resources of Yemen and that is what it is all about in the same way much terrorism around the world has been linked to oil. In 2016 alone, the EU gave licence to the export of €28 billion worth of arms to the Middle East area. France alone got licence to export almost €4 billion worth of arms to that area.

Terrible things have happened in Libya lately. Those troubles began not with Gaddafi but with his overthrow in 2011 and the NATO bombing which destroyed the country. France has played a poor role of late. It was bad enough that France, the UK and the US led the bombing in 2011, caused untold destruction, ended up killing approximately 40,000 people and have done much more damage since but, of late, France has been active in its support of Khalifa Haftar, who is a brutal, military thug. Sadly, he was protected by the US and he moved to and lived in Virginia, not far from CIA headquarters. He went back to Libya when the bombs started falling and took control of Benghazi in 2017 thanks to French support. It is terrible that the European Union does not have the wherewithal to prevent France behaving like this.

It would be great if we could call France to account. It would be very difficult for a small country like Ireland to stop France from behaving as it does. However, the least we should do is challenge its behaviour and call it out because Libya is descending into further chaos and France has played a poor role in that regard. I asked the Tánaiste yesterday about his views on the role France has played but he refused to answer my question. I would like an answer of some sort from the Government regarding what it thinks of the role France is playing in Libya.

The pursuit of oil is also directly linked to what is happening in Venezuela. While I did not like to upset the party here today for Nancy Pelosi, I was very tempted to come in carrying a Venezuelan flag and wearing a Julian Assange t-shirt. Given that it was not an official Dáil sitting, out of respect to the Ceann Comhairle, I decided to give it a miss. The recognition of Juan Guaidó as the interim President of Venezuela is a total breach of international law just as the US economic sanctions, which are designed to impoverish and cripple Venezuela, are also unlawful but nobody seems to give a damn about international law any more. The pursuit of oil in Venezuela is paramount in the US approach. I was really saddened that European countries, including Ireland, decided to recognise Juan Guaidó, a far-right thug from a very well-off background who does not have 5% of the support of the people of Venezuela. Recognising him was a terrible insult to international law and any form of democracy. John Bolton was arrogant enough to go on television and state that he could not wait for Venezuelan oil to be under the control of US companies. In fairness to him, he was hiding it anyway. Like Cuba did for so long, we have watched Venezuela fight the indomitable economic and military might of the US in order to try to survive. Any interest the US has in Venezuela has nothing to do with the interests of the people of that country. I wish Europe would wake up to that, start to work for mediation between the Venezuelan Government and the opposition and cut the US out of the equation. Let us come up with something that makes sense.

US sanctions against Iran constitute more madness. An investigation by Seymour Hersh has revealed that terrorist groups in Iran have been funded by the US and Israel. It also revealed that the Bush Administration had been funding covert operations in Iran that were designed to destabilise the country's leadership since 2005. In the interim, a number of leaders of terrorist organisations have revealed their links to US and Israeli finance, weapons and training. The US recently designated Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organisation and nobody batted an eyelid. It is frightening.

Regarding the link between terrorism and climate change, we are staring at climate breakdown head on. The majority of governments pay lip service to taking action to tackle the crisis. The EU says nothing while the most powerful countries in the world lie, invade, fight and kill over the fossil fuels that should stay in the ground. If we are to have any chance in hell of stopping the worst of climate breakdown, this must stop.

I will conclude on the madness that is Julian Assange's arrest. I think people need to understands that the arrest of Julian Assange is a threat to good journalists the world over. In fairness, the Swedish prosecutor went to the Ecuadorian Embassy, interviewed Assange and dropped the charges a few months later. The Department of Justice in the US never sent representatives to interview Assange but now even Pelosi's crowd, the Democrats, have joined forces with the most reactionary of Trump's crowd in demonising him. This is nonsense. Great Britain has keeled over and bowed down to the US desire to have Assange arrested and possibly extradited to face so-called US justice. If he ends up before the US federal justice system, he might never be seen again. Great Britain once had an empire so large that it boasted that the sun never set on it. Where is Great Britain now? It is a pawn of the US - how sad.

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