Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. I saw him and the Minister on television when they were in the main hall in Stormont doing their work of peacekeeping at that level and internally. We have spent a lot of this Oireachtas trying to keep the bailiff from the front door but the matter has been stabilised and now we have a chance for more active and informed policy interventions. What happened in Belfast has been quite successful, a fact which must be emphasised, and the event could act as a pointer. Ireland, because it does not have a colonial past, could take more of these initiatives, particularly now that we have stabilised the financial programme.

Joschka Fischer, in a recent interview, said:

[Europe] will need to focus on stabilizing its Middle Eastern, North African, and Eastern European neighbors with money, commitment, and all its hard and soft power. A united approach will be crucial.

To go to the source of these problems is important but we have not done so, as Europe. There are a lot of questions about some of the interventions that have led to these problems. I am pleased to see Russia's initiative is to hold a peace conference and that the US Secretary of State, Mr. John Kerry, has responded in a positive manner.

In terms of the 4,000 refugees who come here, the major change must be that they are allowed to work. There is evidence that the 4,000 refugees will include people of great skills, training, etc., so they could be an asset. An inability to work was a fault in the previous ways we have looked after people who sought asylum and refuge in this country. Ireland should also take measures to help refugees who wish to return home. We should implement an independent foreign policy to look after their homesteads so that they can, if they wish, go back home.

In the first nine months of this year it was estimated that out of those who came to Europe 39% were from Syria, 11% from Afghanistan, 7% from Eritrea and that the rest came from Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia and Sudan.We need a whole new approach to foreign policy through the United Nations, through helping people in the United Nations Food Programme, to the work of NGOs and so on and, particularly, as my colleagues have said, in the Lebanon which has borne part of the adjustment. About 7 million people have left Syria and only a fraction of those have landed on Europe's shores. This is a wider problem. There is an interview in the international journal of foreign affairs with President al-Assad. Just to hear, without endorsement, from his angle, it states that the United States has caused problems by getting into Iraq. He mentioned Afghanistan. One wonders what that intervention by both the United States and the United Kingdom was for and the invasions of Libya, the destabilisation of Lebanon and so on. He said also there is terrorist financing by Saudi Arabia, Qatar through Turkey. Therefore, a huge problem is causing what lands on the Minister's desk and the 4,000 he is trying to take in.

Going back to the time of Frank Aiken, as Minister, and Conor Cruise O'Brien, as a major person in the Department of Finance, Ireland should seek again an independent foreign policy on the basis that we are able to assuage people. We do not have the colonial record and perhaps we can assist in bringing peace and co-operation and supporting governance. Governance is complex. We know about it in this House and we know through our tradition of public service and government in this country that it is quite easy to pull one down and extremely difficult to build one up. Sometimes one has to say, "Be careful what you wish for." A country which is destabilised can lose hundreds of thousands and, indeed, millions of refugees. Our help in assisting states where there are disputes between different ethnic groups and different social groups could be brought into play through the undoubted skills in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and through the United Nations. We have such a plethora of problems it has not been the greatest decade for European foreign policy or for US foreign policy or for Russian foreign policy. In view of the kind of dimension which Ireland used to bring to the United Nations in New York, it might be time to reopen all of those old files and assume a more dynamic role, given the high esteem in which Ireland is held. That is endorsed by the conduct of the navy and, of course, the peacekeeping troops and the role they have played in Lebanon. Perhaps out of this awful situation, allowing people to come to this country to work but also developing a more active interventionist foreign policy to bring our undoubted gifts to the wider state to make sure there are no recurrences of these problems, is something we should look at also. I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House.