Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)

—when we see the television pictures, none of which we can believe now because they contradict one another on the hour. They cannot find the armaments factory or the gas equipment that they told us were there. They cannot find the rose blossoms which were to strew the path of the incoming invaders.

Unfortunately and sadly, the invaders, what the Minister called the "occupying forces", are getting there. There has to be a better way than seeing every evening the lined and stricken faces of women and children, old long before their time through hunger, deprivation, worry, loss, abandonment, puzzlement, wondering where they are going and what it is all about. They have absolutely no way of knowing. Their daily lives, from morning until night are one long series of bullets and bombs and a sense that they are bereft.

We must reflect upon the news about the maternity hospital. We must reflect on the fact of women giving new life and the life being stripped away from them as soon as they give it. It is a most awful picture.

We are here today to talk about humanitarian aid. I applaud the flexibility of the Minister in the way he talked about the unallocated funds and how they do it. He dwelt on this particular topic fleetingly, but he did dwell upon it. I find it obscene that it is military lorries that are bringing death and at the same time bringing food.