David Norris (Independent)

I join my colleagues in expressing revulsion at the apparent murder of Ms Margaret Hassan and in extending my sympathy to her family. She is a very remarkable, good, courageous, decent woman and a friend of the Iraqi people. The House should also note that even some of the most extreme groups in Iraq which have been involved in beheadings appealed to the people holding Ms Hassan not to kill her. Let us not use this to engage in Islam-bashing, not that anybody in the House has done so. It is remarkable that, although the Al Jazeera television station had this footage for a week and people obviously knew about it, it was released when it was. It effectively blew off the front pages the other story of an unarmed wounded Iraqi man being blasted to death inside a mosque by an American soldier, in defiance of every code of decency. I hope that issue does not die.

I am not sure whether I should address this to the Cathaoirleach or to the Leader. I have had a communication from an Irish citizen who made a suggestion we might take up, namely, that because of the increasing cycle of horror and death both Houses of the Oireachtas should hold a minute's silence. We held a minute's silence last week, which was futile because the two wars are over and there is nothing we can do about them. If our Government could organise a minute's silence in every parliament throughout Europe simultaneously, perhaps people would stand back a little and ask themselves how we got into this.

I have asked many times for information on the Gulfstream jet at Shannon but have not received a reply. I hope the Leader can get one. How will we feel if it transpires that we must face the family of somebody who was flown through Irish airspace and the excuse is given that the aeroplane landed but nobody got on or off? That is peculiar in itself. I understand that aeroplane has landed approximately 16 times. It should not land again without an explanation to the people regarding its activities.

I ask for a debate on the extremely serious situation in Iraq. Such a debate is essential. Mr. Tom Clonan has said in The Irish Times that "as the cycle of violence continues, it is essential to know and to hope that Presidents Bush's Cabinet reshuffle will bring about wiser counsel as to the manner in which military power is used as an instrument of United States foreign policy". What has President Bush done, however? He has removed Mr. Colin Powell from office and installed Ms Condoleeza Rice as his successor. He has brought in Mr. John Bolton, who in the 1990s proposed the abolition of the United Nations. He is one of the architects of the war in Iraq and is more extreme even than Mr. Donald Rumsfeld.