Michael Mullins (Fine Gael)

I call on the Leader to arrange a debate with the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade on the worsening situation in Syria in which more than 8,000 people, many of them women and children, have died in the past year since anti-government protests erupted. We all see the horrific images on our television screens on a nightly basis. In a separate development, we read this morning that a human rights group is accusing Syria of laying landmines along the border with Lebanon and Turkey which could result in casualties for years to come. Everybody in the House would support the call made by the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, and the US Secretary of State, Mrs. Hillary Clinton, for the international community to speak with one voice on the situation in Syria. I am sure we would all call on Russia and China to support the humanitarian and political approach being adopted by the Arab League. It is clear that the Syrian Government has failed in its responsibilities to protect its own citizens, while the rest of the world has a responsibility to protect the innocent and the vulnerable. We must ask whether the United Nations should consider the possibility of sending a peacekeeping force to Syria.