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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 29 Aug 1990

Vol. 401 No. 9

Middle East Situation: Statements (Resumed).

It is very important because I want to refer briefly to the elements of what should be our common approach. We all want a peaceful resolution of the conflict and de-escalation would help. There needs to be absolute clarity and accountability in relation to what we are doing.

The most important point is a condemnation of the invasion and annexation of Kuwait and particularly the nature of the individual who is prosecuting it, a point to which I will return.

Concern was expressed and rightly so, about the position of Irish citizens who were trapped — I think that is the word which best describes it — in the Gulf region and members of the Labour Party have been contacted by their relatives. Galway, for example, has a large hospital and the staff there have worked with PARC and other organisations in Iraq. The parents of the people in the Gulf region are very concerned. My reaction is that if you are concerned about people bland statements simply do not help. For example, the phrases "when things return to normal" is as relevant as saying in the middle of a heat wave "when the next shower comes".

I felt right from the very beginning that the responsibility for providing facilities should lie with the Department of Foreign Affairs. I believe people would be less anxious if they knew why we were taking certain diplomatic actions. At present relatives are watching television, listening to radios and reading newspapers and in the absence of clarity each new report about what is happening is very disturbing and distressing. I will come back to that point later.

The information and communications component is very important. No matter what one says, one can hardly relieve the anxiety some people feel. I would support all the facilities that have been proposed, indeed I would go further. We should do more than provide free phone facilities. Not only do many people not have a phone but they find it difficult to get to Dublin. Facilities in a Dublin hotel could be provided for such people so that they can have access to an information or communications centre. This could perhaps be linked to the new system of allocating particular families to members of the staff of the Department of Foreign Affairs. That kind of facility staffed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and PARC, who are directly involved, would benefit people who are not living in Dublin.

We need a better flow of information. It is not only a matter of people dealing with the same person where possible but we need to eliminate confusing and conflicting information by having a proper abstracting service — we need to put the information in terms of time, give accurate sources and to make sure it gets out quickly. The centre I have described could be used to facilitate the exchange of opinions between people who are concerned about their relatives. Many of the people who contacted me were deeply distressed. For many people who have relatives working for a medical care organisation there should be counselling services because these relatives find it very difficult to cope with the uncertainty and the great strain.

These are very important and immediate concerns which affect the relatives of people who are trapped in the Gulf region. The families who are trapped in the region are affected above all else by our policy position in relation to the present conflict. Those families, members of the international community, the people who live in the region, those who have migrated to the region and those who are indigeous to the region are all important and it behoves all of us in this Parliament to be concerned about how we can assist them. They are not being assisted, for example, by those people who feel macho about our policy of neutrality, by those who snipe and sneer at our policy of neutrality or by those who said it was irrelevant whether we went to the WEU. It is very relevant that we answer the question about the WEU. I have no problems about it in relation to the Labour Party — it would have been entirely wrong to go to the WEU.

If we are going to have clarity, let us have real clarity. Who wants to give the military option priority over the economic sanctions option? Who wants to participate in military for a which may or may not assist the diplomatic resolution of the conflict in the region? Why do they want that? On what is their analysis based? How critical and detailed is the analysis taking place in the Gulf at present? It is simply because of my familiarity and commitment to people described by commentators of the West as members of the Third World, that I find it curious, not only insensitive but offensive when people say that perhaps the people of this region will need assistance in coming to accept the borders which exist at present. It is fascinating to think about the respect in the twenties when this part of the world was being carved up in an arbitrary fashion. One of the curious disabilities of some sections of the western mind in approaching the problems of that and other regions is that they suffer from a kind of amnesia when it comes to history. I would caution against this forgetful approach towards the region.

Even though I profoundly disagree with him morally and in every other way in the assertion that oil importing countries have the right to be concerned, I was very glad to hear Deputy Dukes refer, correctly, to the shadow which the politics of oil have cast over the conflict we are speaking about this morning. One could say, for example, that one expects them to be concerned, if their consumption patterns and so on are propped up by a supply of cheap petroleum products, traditionally from the area of conflict we are discussing now, and before that from one's neighbours whom one regarded as suitable material for being beggars. However we may be described as having indigestion, there are, believe it or not, those of us who feel there is a moral question around such matters as whose oil we are talking about, whose consumption patterns we are talking about, to what extent will people bring us to the brink of a third world war, and what motivation lies behind it.

Who is selling it? Who wants to sell it?

That is a very interesting point and I will refer to it in a moment. I want to make one point extremely clear: my reaction and that of my party when we read about recent events was the same as most people who commented here. I would go further and say that historically Saddam Hussein, — in terms of what he has done to his own people, to neighbouring countries, to causes that affect neighbouring countries and the prospects for peace — has behaved in an inhuman manner. I did not hear any shouts when the Kurds were the victims of the particular forms of warfare in the possession of Saddam Hussein.

Perhaps it is not the cynic in me but the desire for moral consistency that makes me ask who created this person we are all willing to call a monster? When one speaks about oil importing countries it is very interesting to ask where Saddam Hussein's material came from. His mustard gas capacity came from Germany, his air strike capacity came from the United States, the USSR gave him much of his ground capacity, particularly tanks and Britain gave him surface to air installations he could use. One could go on through the list.

If there is to be a foreign policy committee, and if there is to be a straight-forward, tough, critical debate and analysis, let us ask some questions about the future of this region. Let us think about the people of the region who, we are told, will need some external assistance in retaining their boundaries. We are leaving aside just for the moment the nature of the boundaries we are talking about, who drew them up and with what brilliant insight. One welcomes the countries in favour of the resolution of the UN, but many have a question mark over the credibility, for example, of the people who feel that the economic sanctions are not good enough, that there is a need to make it far more war-like. They are the countries which are making money from riddling that whole region with armaments and saying defence contracts were far more important than any kind of milk and water, lily-livered diplomacy, to use a phrase of one major US spokesperson. Let us get on with the business of selling armaments into the area. That is about dollars and jobs. I am not singling out the US because I gave a list of other countries. I did not include them all. France sold armaments into the area, and one could think of others. There are people in this House who were very interested in hearing one day the distinction in Irish foreign policy that arises from us not being an armaments producing country while some of the Twelve are arms producers. What implications does that have on their position?

The people who felt economic sanctions were not strong enough got — to borrow imagery — an attack of moral colic and felt they needed to have a military solution. Mrs. Thatcher said that the sanctions were not strong enough. Of course, we were all asked to forget about Mrs. Thatcher's foreign policy view in relation to sanctions against South Africa, but there is nothing like the Zeal of a convert to sanctions. What would have been the reply in the British House of Commons if a member had said "I agree with you, Prime Minister, sanctions really might not work; we need to make it stronger; let us have a military assault on South Africa as well as the sanctions"?

There are the people who said, "we are deeply motivated, the sanctions are not strong enough for us because really we think we have gone soft on sovereignty". Those people came from a country that went to Panama killing not only the supporters of the dictator of whom they did not approve. A fundamental principle in some people's foreign policy relates to dictators of whom they approve, those of whom they approve slightly and those of whom they definitely disapprove. However, civilians can be caught in the middle, and we are entitled in this House to be concerned about the photographs of civilians killed in these operations. That brought us back to the little riddle with which I began about the journey from Resolution 660 to the last Resolution which enables support to be given for the implementation of sanctions, which I and the Labour Party support. That relates to Article 57 of the UN Charter. Then there was the view that because we all felt threatened we needed to invite people in to make us feel secure and so on.

It is time to support the UN Resolutions and its Secretary-General, but it is time for an end to the nonsense of people being fair weather supporters of the UN.

Hear, hear.

It is time for people who believe in sovereignty to respect everybody's sovereignty and to end the racism of saying that Latins, Arabs or blacks have less sovereignty. That racist principle is at the root of qualified sovereighty in my experience. They cannot run their own affairs. Winston Churchill stayed up at night wondering what British solution he would think of for parts of the Gulf and if he could find a tame Arab who would serve and so on.

These matters are blurred at the moment but, when all the easy speak is over, there is no point in imagining they are not real. There are facts that cannot be denied and they should be addressed. I agree with those who say we cannot agree in this House on a resolution.

I was willing to agree and forget a great number of things so that we would have a common position which would have stressed unequivocal condemnation of the invasion and annexation of Kuwait and the importance of supporting the UN Security Council Resolution. We could have gone so far as to stress and support what has happened through European political co-operation keeping us together. We could have stopped short of giving any blank cheque for the future. We could have said it was very important that there be the fullest possible assistance for the relatives and stopped short of specifying any one detail so as to be able to raise maybe a dozen more when future talks with the relatives' committee take place. We could have gone further than that and appealed for support in the way I have described without limitation or arrogant prescription through Perez de Cuellar's regional initiative for peace, and have attempted to get Iraq back within the UN Charter. We could have stressed the capacity of diplomacy versus the horrendous possibilities of war.

The Workers' Party have no difficulty with anything I have described and I know the Government have no difficulty. I have given the whole story as to why we have not an agreed motion in the House this morning. We were asked to indicate our position and all I have done so far is to stress that.

I will not be very much longer because other Members want to speak, but I want to qualify some matters in so far as there is a Labour Party position on this. I am becoming a little weary of the people who say, as I read this morning, they want a forum on neutrality. It is rather like people having a forum on the existence of God. If they feel they cannot be neutral any more, could they not make their own minds up first and then tell the rest of us? We on this side believe in positive, active neutrality, in education through the system in the schools in developing cultural pluralism, the case for peace, the advantage of getting away from armaments producing countries, staying clear of the blocs, the way diplomacy works, the business of being able in crucial situations to move into forms of dialogue and so on, and all that makes possible in terms of a less militarised planet. Why are we presumed to be a kind of drag on something? It is interfering with trade is it not? We are told it upsets the Americans and has done so for years and that it is not good for business. There are exercises we could be going on with so that we would not be perceived as lethargic Europeans. We should be able to feel more panEuropean, to say the spirit of Europe is more vibrant in us and when we get manic we can all be Christian Democrats, a source from which the major threat to tolerance, to democracy and to peace has come on this continent and in this country, not from the Left, who are hung up with neutrality. It is about time it was said. Let them have their internal forum first and then whatever comes out of that let them send invitations to those of us who believe in something else. But in the meantime let it be known that when all the free telephone lines were set up we were not helping the Gulf by saying that neutrality was unimportant or that the Shannon incident was unimportant, or that going to the WEU was unimportant and that it was necessary to be strong and so on. Those were damaging attitudes and damaging statements and they were unhelpful to the people involved and they were singularly unhelpful to the diplomatic process.

In regard to critical debate, let us have that now. There are issues that are being fudged as well. I have said that reference was made by the previous speaker to the boundaries that exist. There is more than a problem of boundaries involved. The Minister may reply because he might tell me what the Foreign Affairs position is on this.

Does anybody who knows the region seriously suggest that there was not a structural basis for instability there for a very long time? I have seen articles since this conflict broke out about beautiful, lovely Kuwait. But then again I read articles in my time about beautiful lovely Beirut. There are many beautiful lovely places but in this beautiful lovely country, if one was not arrested in pre-1922 — and I would be glad to be updated on this — did one have a vote? Suppose one passed another resolution looking for free elections and wanted everyone to participate, where would one get with it? It is a very interesting question about the structure of power in Kuwait. I am not saying for one second that I am qualifying my opposition to the invasion and to the annexation of Kuwait by saying that. But I am saying that the west ignored the structural basis of conflict in that region in its statements for a very long time.

There are those who say that political stability in that region was when there was a stable, steady non-mad supplier of oil and that it does not matter a curse who surrounds him. There are other people who would say that if one were to have stability in the region one would need something more than such a puppet retailer or wholesale supplier of oil. What was needed in fact was some kind of process or dynamic within the region which would invite the people of the region into some form of participation in their societies. But if people read books like David Framkin's "Peace to End all Peace, 1989" and if they read the people who are writing about this region, they would see that what has bedevilled the region has been western models of participation and government being imposed on cultures that are thousands of years old. It is not to say that we have not got very far, but there is the legacy of colonisation, the legacy of one imperial initiative after another and a writing off of the people when they cannot, if one likes, come up to the western imperialist or colonial models, one failed experiment after another, one arbitrary set of boundaries after another.

I hope that this conflict will pass. I believe that diplomacy will prevail. But if it does, it means much more than simply that there be a withdrawal from Kuwait — and I believe that that is absolutely essential — and that its sovereignty be respected, and whatever my comments on its internal structure might be they do not qualify sovereignty.

It is equally clear that there will have to be some possibility for a new dialogue in the region, but one cannot write about other cultures and speak about other cultures in a way in which one is measuring them against some kind of touchstone of Western initiatives, often models that have failed in the West itself. Many political scientists like myself believe that the old Westminister model, with what it offers about accountability, is almost on its last legs. We will leave that one aside for another day. The fact of the matter is that there will have to be respect for the dynamic of the region.

I am upset by the commentators as well about this conflict. I know people are very interested in their own, and I respect their position. I am talking about the other commentators. If one looks at the state that was invaded and so monstrously and ludicrously and illegally annexed, Kuwait, what about the migrant workers in that state? What about the people of other nationalities? What is to happen to them? It is a very shabby thing of bits and pieces in foreign policy to say, let us talk all morning about our own and I will save up a paragraph for the rest of the world at the end. There are votes in that, I suppose; but I do not believe there are. I believe that people are more sophisticated and getting more so every day.

There is a last point I want to make. Maybe this debate can clarify it once and for all. I would ask the Minister — because it has been an extraordinary week with the collision of beef and foreign policy coming at last that had been threatening for decades — at what point will there be a collision between an industrial strategy or set of policies and the question of unbridled diplomacy? The time has come to make up our minds. We are not alone in this. The United States, for example, dealing with demon Saddam Hussein felt that he was a reformable devil or demon as late as 15 June. John Kelly, Assistant Secretary of the State Department, giving evidence before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee gave a warning to the Senators present — this is very interesting — as reported in The Observer of 26 August 1990. He said:

We export one billion a year, 23 per cent of United States rice output, cattle, eggs, lumber, tobacco.

That was on 15 June. So the demonology is rather hastily constructed. I am not saying Hussein is justified. I am saying that people who qualify their foreign policy by the requirements of economics, be it armaments or otherwise, lose credibility. Even if there are to be economic losses in support of a principled position, they will have to be, because that is what is required.

I also agree with one point the Minister made, that it is important that people stand together and that one country be not picked off against another. If the position about sanctions does not succeed we are creating the space for a military solution. I know as I speak here that very prominent members of the Security Council are looking at Perez de Cuellar's talks this morning and they have no commitment to anything other than their failure, and the last thing they want is a series of talks, a series of negotiations which might bring peace. I know that they will have to solve their problems, but I know that what I say is a fact. Yet I wish Perez de Cuellar well, and I think this Parliament really can distinguish itself by putting aside petty differences of nuance and by stressing the UN and stressing support for the Secretary General, and in addition to that it can go through its EPC process where the EPC process is on side with our overall position.

Let nobody be a bit unclear about what is taking place in relation to the British participation in European political co-operation. It is rather like having a difficult relative. Nobody says anything so as to keep the British on side about this. The British statements on this crisis have been belligerent. Sometimes Mrs. Thatcher, as far as I am concerned, seems not only unconvincing but also to be describing herself, the person who ordered the sinking of the Belgrano in international waters, which by any justification in international law was an act of international terrorism, the woman from whose tongue the title trips off with such ease. The fact is that there has to be a distinction between the Irish position as mediated through European political co-operation and the British position. Last night Mrs. Thatcher gave an interview in which she said that she was now feeling vindicated, that she was able to become stronger and that she could come to George's aid quicker because we had not got as far as European integration. She was against a European federation for that reason. She could jump faster to support George Bush's military option because she was not tied into the European process.

It is very important for us to realise as well that there are people among the Irish public who want not only to be told in a footnote that we can within the process use our veto in matters military for example, they want to know what we are doing. All that relatives want to know, that people who are interested in foreign policy want to know, that people in the parties want to know, that the public want to know is that there is openness and transparence. I hope the Minister will use this summer to think on the advice of having a foreign affairs committee so that the public can be involved in all of this. The Government should certainly establish such a committee.

The Deputy who spoke before me spoke about the sweeping of issues under the carpet. All the people who have hangups about aspects of foreign policy can let it all hang out as far as I am concerned, if that is what they want. The main thing in everything is to be careful enough. That is why we pursued the all-party motion. We want to be careful enough, to be of assistance to those people who are concerned here and, most importantly, to be concerned that we move in the direction of a negotiated settlement and peace rather than of war. We should remember in relation to the military build-up that we have gone long past anything defensive and long past any kind of naval implementation of UN security resolutions. We have gone to a very delicate point where incidents could spark major hostilities. We will not be thanked when we turn on the news and hear that conflict had at last broken out, many were killed and so on. If anybody loses his life in a war that was avoidable through diplomacy, we will not be thanked. That is why I hope that what comes out of this at the very end will be a positive result.

It is most important, and I stress it again lest people misconstrue anything I have said, to point out that Saddam Hussein's record in Iraq of oppression, his record against minority groups, his use of terror, his actions of invasion and his actions of annexation have led people to look at his actions with horror. All I am saying in my speech this morning is that the construction of a demonology is not a substitute for an adequate foreign policy, nor is it a substitute for a set of diplomatic initiatives which are in favour unequivocally of the United Nations and peace. I believe — and the Minister will clarify this once and for all — that the playing of games with those who favour the use of the military embargo as opposed to the sanctions option is not only a breach of some ideological principle of neutrality but is dangerous. It will be misinterpreted abroad and will damage not only our own interests but will not help the solution. There is the suggestion that one can put it right retrospectively. The Department can say at the weekend nothing has happened. Then on the Saturday we get Resolution 665 — now one can say it did happen, but we are all right. That is more than game-playing; it is a dangerous nonsense. While we are following a particular policy, we should make it clear but also we should follow it unequivocally.

I say this on behalf of the Labour Party and it is the very last word as far as we are concerned. We see our hopes for a resolution of this conflict particularly in the initiatives of the Secretary General of the UN, for a very interesting reason. As the Cold War disappeared with withdrawal of one component of geo-politics from the geo-political stage, namely the Soviet Union, meant that there had to be a change in the balance of relationships. If we are going to avoid the absurdity of any one or other of the super powers taking upon themselves the self-appointed role of moral policeman of the world, we will need other balances in the geo-political frame.

One of those most important balances was the emergence of the capacity to make regional settlements in southern Africa, aspects of North Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and so forth. That process of putting regional settlements and resolutions of conflict into place has been powerfully assisted by the present occupant of the post of Secretary General of the United Nations, Perez de Cuellar. It has been the mark of his recent achievements that he has been able to negotiate within that framework, which is at once something quite beyond the erosion of the Cold War. It is that process that deserves our support and I hope it will be successful. I hope that from now on — if not today — we will all be able to say the same things and that we will all be able to welcome a de-escalation of the conflict that is taking place.

It is important to keep open the process of dialgoue and of talks. I agree with the Leader of the Fine Gael Party that one has to view with deep scepticism the announcements of last night from Iraq but, at the same time, if that source can make no announcement whatever which will be the basis of talks, we will make no progress whatsoever. That is why the reference in the Minister's speech to the new initiatives that are taking place — in particular the ones I have referred to by the Secretary General of the UN — all deserve respect.

When this issue changes, and when the Dáil comes back into its more regular sessions and we have debates on foreign policy which are critical, I hope they will not be simply a reaction to the most recent or contemporary events but that they will be based on an adequate analysis of all of the forces that have created this inheritance. A great deal of it has indeed been based on — and I agree with Deputy Dukes in this regard — the uncritical approach of people towards foreign policy positions. It is very important that we have criticism. In relation to the western response to this crisis one must ask questions. Every arbitrary whim was tried out. The next three or four decades in different parts of the world will be all about seeking new models of Government consultation and co-operation and so forth. The people who wrote about the sources of this problem back in the twenties wrote letters home from the area asking how were they going to establish a boundary there. Yet, there have to be boundaries because of the structure of international law. It is important that the Geneva Accord and all of the other accords be respected. At the same time the difficulties remain. It is very important that there be mutual respect on the sides of the conflict so as to keep open all the possible peaceful avenues for resolution and to try to move away from the drift or escalation towards a military engagement.

It is always a pleasure and an enlightenment to listen to Deputy Michael D. Higgins on the question of foreign affairs. He has demonstrated yet again his very clear grasp of the fundamentals of the situation in the world today and outlined many things which I must say I would support wholeheartedly in relation to what needs to be done to deal with the situation we find ourselves in.

It gives me no pleasure at this point to say that I regard the attitude of the Fine Gael Party in this debate as quite extraordinary. It smacks very much of cynical opportunism and there appears to have been a deliberate decision not to agree to a motion for the Dáil today. I proposed at our meeting with the Taoiseach that there be an agreed motion to give the Government a stronger hand in dealing with the situation in which we find ourselves, in their dealings with both the United Nations and the European Community and indeed in their dealings with Saddam Hussein. All of us in this House have our opinions on a range of international issues and how they should be addressed but there are basic principles to which, in the current situation, this House should have agreed today. It is unfortunate that we are not now going to have such agreement. Statements are fine, but at the end of the day I think the Irish position would be far stronger if we had an agreed motion. I might add that we were on the verge of agreement. Deputy Higgins, the Minister and I agreed broadly on the contents of what I would have regarded as a very good motion to come from this House but, unfortunately, this cannot be moved because Fine Gael insist that a number of matters, which to my mind are superfluous to the issues we were attempting to deal with, should be included. I regret I have to say that because I think it could have been avoided. Nevertheless, it has happened and we now find ourselves in a position where we have to make statements. I hope what we have to say here will be of some help to the Irish people being held in Iraq and Kuwait and also to the hundreds of thousands of other foreign nationals in Kuwait and Iraq whose lives are at risk.

The current crisis in the Gulf, with the involvement of multinational troop movements, unparalleled since the height of the Vietnam War, highlights the extremely fragile nature of the world's politics and indeed economy. Obviously, I want to make it clear that The Workers' Party condemn the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The international community, through the United Nations, has a right and a duty to ensure that there is no toleration of invasion of any state by another. The Iraqi authorities must also be condemned for their refusal to allow foreign nationals working and living in Kuwait and Iraq the right to free movement and to leave the area, if they so wish. Similarly, the threat by Saddam Hussein to use chemical weapons in the region is nothing short of disgraceful. It can only serve to further inflame the situation and make more difficult the task of obtaining a peaceful solution to the problems.

It must be said that the manner in which opposition to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait has been dealt with to date by some countries, the United States in particular, also poses a major long-term threat in attempting to find a peaceful resolution of the immediate crisis. The holier than thou condemnations by United States Government spokespersons of the invasion by Iraq are to my mind incredible. In the past decade the US has invaded both Grenada and Panama to instal governments of its liking. In Grenada, the then US President, Ronald Reagan, cited the construction of an international airport on this tiny Caribbean island as posing a threat to the security of the United States shortly before US troops moved in. In Panama, the invasion involved the violation of the diplomatic status of foreign embassies and, according to the American Government's own figures, resulted in the death of at least 220 civilians. There is little difference, in my mind, between this type of behaviour and the actions of the Iraqi Government and it places a large question mark over the real intentions of the United States Administration with its massive military build up in the region.

The effects on Ireland, shown through the difficulties facing Irish people working in countries in the Gulf area, the soaring price of petrol and indeed the upheaval in a number of areas of our trade, are mirrored in many other countries. It would take a very small mistake indeed to unleash a military conflagration which would bring death on a large scale and prolong instability in the region for generations to come. There is a particular obligation on the Government to look after the interests of the thousands of Irish people in the Gulf area, particularly those working in Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia whose lives and livelihoods are endangered at present. The vast majority are young people and couples who, due to the failure of consecutive Governments to provide employment at home, have been forced to emigrate in search of employment. They have in fact been encouraged to, euphemistically, seek experience abroad and many are employed by subsidiaries of Irish State companies.

The Government must take a far stronger stand, both within the European Community, at United Nations level and in contacts with Middle Eastern countries to press for a political and diplomatic settlement of the current crisis. There is a serious danger of a military conflagration at any time and such an event would put the lives of all Irish people in the region in even greater peril. The Government should use this country's neutral status, outside the military blocs and already playing a positive role in the United Nations forces in the Lebanon, to actively and forcibly press for a political resolution of the crisis. In that regard may I say that I was somewhat surprised by the reference in the Minister's speech to the issue of refuelling facilities at Shannon? He stated:

...are within the bounds of established policy in the event of an international crisis. Such facilities are in keeping with our commitment to uphold the UN Charter and to ensure that it is respected in all its aspects. The UN Security Council, in its Resolution 661 in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, specifically cites Article 51 of the Charter, which provides for the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence of all member states. The troops transported through Shannon were provided in response to a request for assistance from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

I presume refuelling facilities were provided to the United States in response to a request from Saudi Arabia and not the United Nations. Perhaps, the Minister would explain how he equates the provision of these facilities with the fulfilment of the requirements of the United Nations. Certainly, there is nothing in the resolutions passed by the Security Council of the United Nations which would indicate that member states are required to provide these facilities. If the troops concerned were operating under the flag of the United Nations I would have no difficulty in agreeing to the provision of these facilities but that is not the kind of situation we are dealing with. The United States has quite clearly stated that it does not want to operate under a United Nations flag; it does not want its troops to be United Nations troops in the way Irish troops operate in the Lebanon and in other parts of the world. They have said they want a United Nations umbrella but not the United Nations flag.

Unless we get a commitment from the United States that it will comply with United Nations' resolutions and will not further engage in unilateral action in the way it has done to date having regard to the military build-up in the area and its proposals in relation to a military blockade, we should not provide these facilities to them. This point should be addressed more clearly by the Government having regard to the way we define our neutrality and our commitments to the United Nations. A very thin line exists between what is happening now, in relation to the sanctions against Iraq by the world community, and the possibility that it may well turn it into a military confrontation. It is important that we clear our minds in advance. I firmly believe that the decision to provide these refuelling facilities at this time is a mistake.

I want to clarify something else in this regard. When I mention neutrality, and I have said this before both inside and outside this House, in this age of interdependence and mass destruction weapons, it is not and cannot be an isolationist position. We cannot opt out of the world and its problems but as a small country we can join with others — there are at least 100 neutral and non-aligned countries in the world — who have a similar view and make peaceful resolution of conflicts the priority and not the use of military force.

The taking of hostages is a cruel and inhuman practice. It causes suffering and distress not just to the persons detained but to their families and friends who may be many thousands of miles away. It is a practice that is unfortunately all too common in the Middle East. There was genuine joy and relief in this country at the release, over the weekend, of Brian Keenan after his appalling four year orderal in Beirut. Unfortunately, there are many still held in similar conditions there. Let us not forget that there are hundreds of Palestinian and Lebanese hostages held under Israeli control at the notorious Kyiyan Prison in South Lebanon. When we are talking about hostages and a resolution of that problem, it is very important to bear in mind that it is not a one-sided issue.

The decision of the Iraqi Government to refuse to allow certain non-nationals, including Irish citizens, to leave Iraq and Kuwait is one of the most sinister developments of the present crisis. The safe release of these people must be a policy objective of the Irish Government and the entire international community.

A clear call should go from us here today to Saddam Hussein demanding the release of our citizens and all other non-nationals who wish to leave.

There is a particular need for the Government to recognise the appalling pressure placed on the families of Irish people held in Iraq and Kuwait by the uncertainty of the situation. They deserve our support and assistance and the Government must take all steps necessary to ensure they are fully and truthfully informed of all developments. It is essential that rumours which arise very quickly in situations like this are firmly squashed and that the truth is conveyed to everybody concerned as quickly as possible. It is also important that there is a regular and reliable channel of communication between Irish citizens held and their families at home and that financial assistance is provided to relatives who may need it.

The Government also have an obligation to deal with the problems created for thousands more Irish people either at home on holidays from the Gulf or contracted to begin work in the Middle East region whose livelihoods have been wrecked by the current crisis. Those who have not yet been thrown back on the dole, may have taken career breaks or left employment, now find themselves in an intolerable situation. The Irish Government have been happy to see people leave Ireland as a means of easing the statistics of unemployment and economic failure. They must now facilitate such people in whatever way it is necessary to ensure that their problems are adequately dealt with.

It should be recalled when we are considering the pros and cons of the present crisis that during the recent bloody war between Iraq and Iran the major powers sided with Iraq and their weapons were responsible for allowing this horrendous war to continue throughout the eighties — until recently the major powers viewed the Iraqi Government as an ally against the spread of Islamic fundamentalism and Iraq was regarded as one of the most secular countries in the region.

The condemnations of Iraq as a dictatorship are correct but their Government are not substantially different from most others in the region. Kuwait, for example, had a nominal electorate of 50,000 in a population of 1.8 million. The franchise was limited to males over 21 whose families had lived in the area since before 1921. Seats had to be contested by individuals as political parties were banned. Even this limited representation was abolished by Kuwait Head of State, Sheik Al Sabah, in 1986.

I mention these specific points to draw attention to the complexity and often contradictory nature of the western approach to and involvement in the Middle East region. The American strategy, backed by the biggest military mobilisation since the height of the Vietnam War, that a sharp, swift assult on Iraqi forces offers the panacea to the problem is, in my view, a grave mistake and could plunge the region into generations of conflict. More importantly, the prospect of destabilisation of the entire Middle East must be considered. There has already been evidence in many Arab countries that there is considerable resentment at the unprecedented US military build-up in Saudi Arabia. The US has already displayed its disregard for feelings, not just in Arab States but in the United Nations, by threatening military action to enforce the trade embargo in Iraq. Such adventurism serves to jeopardise rather than enhance the prospect of a satisfactory solution and will lead to an increase in anti-Western sentiment in the Middle East generally.

In many respects the genesis of the current crisis lies in the attempts by major powers to manipulate the politics and the economies of the Middle East for its own advantage. The underlying instability of the region has been greatly sustained by long-term support for undemocratic administrations in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Gulf States. The refusal of Kuwait to maintain agreed oil prices was certainly a major economic threat to Iraq, which in no way justifies the invasion of Kuwait, but raises a fundamental question about the extent to which meddling by outside countries in the Middle East has created and maintained the conditions for this crisis.

The crisis reveals the essential weakness in the current US strategy of maintaining the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. NATO clearly was not seen as suitable to deal with the situation which has developed in the Gulf. The sending of a huge array of offensive weaponry to the region had to be camouflaged with troops from Arab States. The truth is that NATO is now as redundant as the Warsaw Pact in terms of its value in solving any crisis which may emerge on the world stage. What its continued existence is designed to preserve, however, is the ethos of the Cold War and a cover for United States' intentions to continue their role as world policemen.

I am glad that many European countries have expresed reservations and objections to the efforts of the US to take unilateral military action to enforce sanctions against Iraq. It shows that there is considerably more sensitivity on this side of the Atlantic to the realities of the Middle East. It is regrettable, however, that the Irish Government have failed to raise their voice against actions taken outside that agreed and sanctioned at UN level. Can the Minister for Foreign Affairs or the Taoiseach explain why there has been this silence with regard to the actions I referred to? It would be a means of asserting our neutrality and our demand for a peaceful solution, of insisting that military force of the "gung-ho" type must be rejected, and that unified action aimed at securing a political and peaceful solution to the problem must be the priority.

If the world community is united against the Iraqi position, then sooner rather than later — and I believe it will be very much sooner — the Iraqi Government will be forced to come to terms with the demands of the world community for compliance with UN resolutions and international law. Admittedly the Irish Government have participated in the visit by Foreign Ministers of the EC troika to Arab capitals. I believe a more active stance is required both within the European Community and the United Nations. Ireland enjoys considerable respect in the Middle East. Our troops serving in Lebanon have earned respect for their even-handed approach in a very difficult situation.

I have said in previous debates that the Irish Government should lead the debate in moving away from the concept of military solutions to the problems confronting states. From a European perspective the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe is the vehicle which would fill the space left by dismantling NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Its tenets are also the basis on which problems in other areas of the world could be addressed. Factors which need to be dealt with in regard to the Middle East by the CSCE include the level of arms sales to Third World countries generally. I am thinking of the uncontrolled sale of nuclear technology which has brought Iraq to the verge of being a nuclear weapons power. Now another state in the region, Israel, has achieved substantial nuclear weapons capability.

The sale of chemical and conventional weapons must be stopped. Priority must be given to stopping sales to states which harbour territorial claims on their neighbours or engage in hostile propaganda against nearby states. Without the supply of sophisticated offensive weaponary to Third World states it would not be possible for such states to become a sudden threat to stability in any region. However, the statistics show that huge profits are being made by the military industrial complex in the developed world from sales of arms to Middle Eastern countries, such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Syria, Egypt; the list of the countries and profits is endless.

At the end of the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union any old arguments such as that "our" side had to be armed to the teeth to defend their integrity against "their" gang are no longer sustainable. The time is now opportune for a concerted effort to reduce the arms build-up which is occuring in most regions of the Third World. Instead emphasis should be shifted to promoting development programmes and economic and democratic development in Third World countries. The gross extremes of poverty and wealth between Arab states and the lack of any democratic development in countries under the greatest influence of western countries is a breeding ground for conflict and political instability. It is amazing that the Government of Saudi Arabia, armed almost beyond belief from western sources while having a population almost equal to that of Iraq, should be so uncertain of its security that it immediately sought the assistance of United States troops for its defence following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The fact that the United States has responded by sending at least 50,000 troops to the area illustrates its evaluation that the Saudis would be incapable of defending themselves in the event of a war breaking out with Iraq. It is my belief that this inherent instability is due to the totally unrepresentative nature of the Saudi Government. It is little more than the installation of one family in power, with no representative democracy and little, if any, civilian or political rights for the millions of foreign workers who operate its economy.

Finally, I wish to draw attention to the problem of the Palestinians and the Israeli-occupied territories. It would be regrettable in the extreme if the Palestinians were to be consigned to the "forgotten people" status by the current crisis in the Gulf. When I say, "forgotten", I do not imply that the problem will go away. Rather I mean that this most central of problems in the Middle East will be pushed off the agenda or that the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, which in recent years has made valiant efforts to secure a political way forward, will be unable to restrain those who seek a return to violent reaction to the denial of Palestinian civil and political rights.

Indeed it would seem that there has been an attempt in the international media to do down the PLO as a result of their failure to join the condemnations of Iraq. However, it should be remembered that the PLO have extensive and indeed, in the context of the current crisis, valuable contacts with what might be termed both sides in this issue. When Iraq and Kuwait were at loggerheads in 1972 during the oil crisis PLO intervention and mediation helped produce a peaceful solution. They have sought to involve all Arab states in producing a similar peaceful solution this time, but so far, unfortunately, without success. I believe that a prerequisite for an ending of overall tension in the Middle East, preventing cyclical crisis and military escalation, lies in a settlement of the Palestinian issue through the granting of a homeland to the Palestinian people and the guaranteeing of the right of the Israeli state to exist.

I might conclude my statement here today by urging that the road Ireland and the world community have to take in response to this crisis is patient diplomacy, support for the United Nations resolutions; indeed support specifically for the initiatives of the Secretary General of the United Nations in the current situation; and pressure on those states which seem anxious to launch themselves on to the military front. It is interesting to see some of the more gung-ho editorials in newspapers abroad. I would make the point that the editorial writers will not be the people who will have to die if war is launched by any state whether it be the United States or any other. Rather it will be thousands of people who do not want to die, thousands of people who do not want to kill their fellow human beings.

I would ask the Government to bear in mind the statements made here today, to ensure that the sentiments expressed by the parties in this House are conveyed to the world community in general through our diplomatic service; conveyed specifically to Saddam Hussein, making it clear to him that the Irish Parliament stands united behind the Government in their insistance that Irish citizens, passport holders and all foreign nationals in Iraq and Kuwait should be free to leave if they so wish; and that we are insisting that there be a peaceful non-military resolution of the current crisis.

My immediate responsibility in Government, as Minister for Agriculture and Food, obviously is to protect the interests of our farmers and expand the role of the agri-food sector of our economy. Whatever the consequences for our economy in the short term or for this most important sector of our economy, the agri-sector, which represents 40 per cent of our total on our balance of trade, I want to leave no one in this House or outside it in any doubt but that the resolution which the Minister for Foreign Affairs was proposing to this House — and I welcome what I heard Deputy De Rossa and other speakers say — had my enthusiastic and unqualified support, because breaches of fundamental rights come before economic interests, even of the most important sector of the economy. Anything I have to say must be viewed against that background. Therefore I regret and deplore the fact that the adoption of that proposed motion which began in unequivocal terms, "That Dáil Éireann condemns the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait as a flagrant violation of the UN Charter"— that is how it began and that is what this House would have unanimously adopted — has been blocked by the posturing of Fine Gael who insisted on the establishment of a foreign affairs committee as the price of their agreement to that motion. I do not think the universal family of democratic nations will forgive us, and Fine Gael in particular, for that internal posturing, for reasons best known to themselves. Although we do not always agree on each issue and have different views as to how the world might be balanced in a democratic order, it is regrettable that the statement which was presented and acceptable to all others could not have been adopted. I want to read that statement as a record of what whis House would have adopted — and should have adopted — were it not for the posturing of Fine Gael. It reads:

That Dáil Éireann condemns the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait as a flagrant violation of the United Nations Charter, welcomes the agreement by the World Community as expressed through the United Nations, in particular the Security Council inits Resolutions 660, 661, 664 and 665 to reject this violation; confirms its commitment to implement in full the resolutions of the Security Council referred to and calls on all member countries to support the initiative for regional peace at present being undertaken by the UN Secretary General; expresses Ireland's solidarity with its partners in the Europen Community in its total support of the United Nations measures through European political co-operation; calls on the Government of Iraq to abide by its international obligations, including its obligations to all resident nationals from other countries, in particular by ensuring the safety of Irish citizens in Iraq and Kuwait; and to facilitate all those who wish to leave to do so; and declares its commitment to do everything in its power to bringing about a peaceful end to the crisis in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.

Is it not, mar a deirtear sa Ghaeilge, thar a bheith práinneach, more than urgent that such a statement should come unanimously from this House? I welcome the fact that The Workers' Party and the Labour Party have the same view, understandably, as the Government on this matter. I want to condemn without reservation the posturing of Fine Gael who should have been able to see that the realities were more important than the internal differences we might have in this House from time to time as to whether we can put in place now or at any particular time a foreign affairs committee.

That statement represents the strong unqualified position, of the Government and clearly of the vast majority in this House; the world can be assured that we are firmly committed to these democratic principles.

Anything I say henceforth about the interests of the Irish agri-food sector must be seen against that background and statement of principles. It is clear that this debate comes against the background of very significant problems in an area of the world which is of immense importance for out agricultural exports, particularly our beef exports. These problems are hitting beef exports at a time when the industry is beset by a number of other problems. The combination of these factors was outside the control of any one Government or indeed any group of individuals. Much has been and will continue to be done to counteract these problems.

To put the Middle East situation in perspective in terms of our trade and agriculture, the value of Irish agricultural food experts to that area as a whole grew from £240 million to £310 million in the period 1985 to 1989. During that time the value of total exports to Iraq grew from £16 million in 1985 to £60 million in 1988 and £45 million in 1989. When account is taken of export refunds the value of this trade with the Middle East was £500 million in 1989, of which Iraq accounted for £146 million. Therefore, it is very clear that in recent years Iraq has been one of the three most important markets for us in that area, in 1988 it was the most important market. The majority of trade with the area consists of cattle and live animals. In the case of Iraq, beef accounted for over 93 per cent of our total business.

It is obvious that anything which damages the trade would have serious repercussions for the industry and the embargo against Iraq caused such damage. Let there be no doubt in anyone's mind that even if it did cause such huge damage, what I have stated initially is our position in Government, we support UN actions without qualification or reservation. What was worse, taking account of the effect of that embargo on our trade, it came after a period when the trade had suffered from a fall in demand, largely caused by the BSE scare. We need to be quite clear on this, there is no indigenous BSE in Ireland. The small number of cases here — infinitesimal in a cattle population of well over seven million — are import related. Misconceptions and misrepresentations about our position have undoubtedly damaged our interests at a time when other factors were causing difficulties as well. From the beginning we have been active in trying to offset the effects of BSE on Irish exports. In this context it is extremely important to note that when the whole issue of BSE was discussed by the Council of Agriculture Ministers in June this year, the Council adopted special measures in relation to the certification of beef exported from the United Kingdom alone. The Council did not see the need to adopt such measures — or any measures — in respect of Ireland. This is a clear indication that BSE is not considered to be a problem in regard to Ireland.

As I said, my Department have vigorously pursued the case of Irish beef exports with out customers who express concerns. Contacts were made directly with veterinary authorities in the countries concerned, many of them in the Middle East, and also through diplomatic channels via our embassies. All our embassies were alerted and notified of the conclusions of that special meeting of the European Community and given full briefing for transmission throughout all the member states to where they were accredited. In addition, where it was perceived that a visit by our officials to Iran might be helpful it was arranged at very short notice. Arrangements were also made to have veterinary experts from some of the other countries concerned to come here so that they could see our modern and sophisticated veterinary services at first hand. In addition to all these important contacts at first hand, I maintained direct contact with the case and, where possible, met the appropriate personnel from the countries concerned. Indeed as the House will probably know, I had several useful meetings with the Iranian Ambassador in recent weeks, whose help I fully acknowledge in this instance. In addition to these direct contacts with the authorities in our important third country markets, we have also, wherever possible, used the important international scientific bodies to highlight the case of our beef. In the OIE, the internationally recognised veterinary body, we were instrumental in getting recognition of the fact that in the light of the available knowledge about BSE and the measures taken by countries where BSE is present, meat, milk and milk products exported do not present a public health risk. I stress that we also reacted quickly to an inaccurate and damaging report — something that is not widely known at home — by the World Health Organisation.

As a result of the quick action taken by me, by my Department and the permanent representative to the United Nations on our instructions in Geneva, the World Health Organisation issued an immediate apology and correction to the report which they had first issued which had put us in the same bracket as the United Kingdom on this issue. While that apology and correction were circulated widely to the sources that had access to the first inaccurate report, as we know no withdrawal or apology could ever undo the damage that was done in the first instance by the inaccurate report. To the maximum extent possible we got an immediate and unqualified apology and correction of the distortion represented in the first instance in our case. As a direct consequence of our quick action on this issue we were able to persuade the authorities in one third country, a country which had initially imposed an embargo against our beef as a consequence of that inaccurate report, that there was no problem with our beef and this market is now operating satisfactorily.

I believe these actions will bear fruit in helping to resolve the problems caused by the BSE scare. We are still taking actions in respect of a number of countries. A special problem existed in regard to Iran, a major market, but it is believed that it will be possible to resolve this at a political as well as at a technical level. As a result of that, I have indicated to the Iranian authorities that I am happy to lead a delegation to Tehran at the earliest possible date to meet with the Iranian Minister, and others, to discuss current difficulties in the trade and longer-term trading prospects. I expect arrangements for the visit to be finalised shortly. I want to again express my appreciation to the Iranian ambassador for his co-operation in this matter. The outcome of that meeting will be important not alone in the short-term but also in the medium and long-term for the trade relations of the two countries. It will be particularly important so far as our agricultural exports are concerned, and, hopefully, it will contribute to a better and improved relationship between Iran and the other democratic countries of Europe. I am awaiting the finalisation of the arrangements for the meeting and I look forward to a fruitful visit to Iran. It is important that all of these markets be fully opened up to our trade again. We need all the hard won markets of recent years, and others, to sell effectively the product of our expanded beef herd. As everybody knows it was a priority of the Government, and of mine in my capacity as Minister for Agriculture and Food, to expand the national herd. When I came into Government I was given the challenge by my colleagues in Government, and by all Members of this House, to expand the herd to the point where we would have a secure base for a strong beef industry which could export to all international markets. I am glad to be able to say that the farmers of Ireland responded to the direction and incentives I put in place so that we now have — even at a time of acute problems with BSE and the Iraqi embargo — an expanded beef herd which is greater than it was at any point during the midseventies.

Of course, that in its own way has aggravated the problem we have now. Ironically our success in achieving that expansion has given rise to problems due to the market contraction in the European Community, the third countries in the Gulf area and throughout the world generally. We are working vigorously on every front to open up those markets but this will not, however, be the major element in dealing with the needs of our farmers at the peak slaughtering period. I want to make this quite clear because there is a lot of misconception about this issue outside this House. The guarantee in the immediate short-term will be provided by intervention. Later, in the medium and long-term, these markets will be of vital importance but they will not lead, as has been suggested by some, to immediate outlets or a dramatic increase in the price of cattle for suppliers.

The intervention safety net is of vital importance and I feel particularly vindicated that we now have that safety net. When the beef regime was being reformed last year I insisted, virtually alone among the Agricultural Ministers of the Council of the European Community, that the Community should have that safety net intervention procedure included in the repertoire of the Community instruments. Nobody else demanded that we should have that safety net. One other colleague gave me a certain degree of tacit support but were it not for my success, and that of my officials, in getting that safety net put in place we would be facing a very serious freefall in our prices and we would have no protection at all at this time. We were successful in our efforts at that time and the wisdom of our actions is now apparent.

The safety net intervention is providing a real floor in the market at this time and is expected to continue to do so over the peak period. I want to outline to the House what the safety net intervention represents. As long as our price remains below a certain percentage of the actual European price level we will have absolute free access to intervention and the Commission cannot begin to reject what we offer by way of intervention product. That is what it represents as distinct from a tendering system which would come into place if the price differentials were not there. It is a short-term relief but it is a guarantee and a very essential safeguard for our producers and our processors.

Obviously, I am maintaining pressure on the Commission to ensure that intervention continues to work to protect the industry and that other Community supports are also used to the full. This short-term action, supplemented by administrative action to streamline procedures should underpin the market in the short-term. I want to make it clear that it is not a long-term answer and it is critical that we get that answer in place. It is in this respect that the markets in the countries we are talking about today are of vital importance and the development of an effective market strategy throughout the European Community becomes of even greater importance.

Everybody is aware of the importance of the beef industry to Ireland but it is no harm to emphasise it in figures. This is best illustrated by the fact that it contributes some 10 per cent to our gross domestic product. Output of cattle and calves for 1989 was valued at £1,211 million or 36 per cent of gross agricultural output while cattle and beef exports amounted to £780 million and represented 32 per cent of total agricultural exports and 5.2 per cent of total exports. If export refunds are included — this is where our indigenous exports become of much more considerable importance — export earnings from the beef sector increase to £1,010 million and their contribution to agricultural exports and total exports increases to 43 per cent and 7 per cent, respectively. Clearly, the beef sector is of crucial importance in terms of national economic performance. For that reason it is imperative that a viable future is maintained for all engaged in the sector through effective marketing and increased value-added production. Safeguarding that industry is of immense importance and that is why the Government have been so active in ensuring that the problems of firms — and there are many — hit by the unprecedented combination of current factors are tackled and at the same time the difficulties of farmer producers ameliorated. It is also why we need a better and more long-term answer to the problems of the industry.

However, we should not ignore how far we have come. It is reassuring to note that the beef sector has achieved very significant progress over the past 20 years in terms of moving away from live exports and increasing value-added exports. This situation is evident from the fact that our live cattle exports represented 46 per cent of the total destined for export in 1969 and less than 1 per cent by 1989. That is a measure of the growth and development of our trade in this sector. Indeed, the level of live exports to destinations outside the island of Ireland in 1989in toto was down to less than 3 per cent. Over the same 20 year period the industry progressed from producing cattle for export and subsequent slaughter in other countries to one which now exports 75 per cent of our cattle output as beef to destinations throughout the world. Furthermore, it has progressed from exporting 87 per cent of our beef in the bone-in state and only 13 per cent boneless then to now exporting 58 per cent boneless and 42 per cent bone-in, thereby indicating clearly that this sector was moving vigorously and consistently in the right direction, and in the markets that are affected in this area obviously it was making a major impact, perhaps the biggest of all our Community member states.

It must also be acknowledged that an increasingly significant, if yet small, proportion of this takes the form of high quality chilled boneless cuts. A major beneficial consequence of this progress to the Irish economy is that some 5,000 people are now employed directly in the meat processing industry. In addition there are some 100,000 farmers involved in the production of cattle, the raw material of the industry. The industry is also of major benefit to the services sector particularly in the area of transport.

Our challenge now is to devise a strategy for the future which better combines marketing in the Community with marketing in third countries. The third countries we are addressing today are and will remain important. However, I believe we have the balance wrong. We need to devise policies which will lead to a more rational cattle disposal pattern. I expect that the recommendations of the Policy Review Committee I set up late last year will form the basis for such a strategy. One thing is clear at this stage. We must put more effort into promotion of Irish beef within the EC. This must mean an expanded role for CBF, and that there can be no undue reliance on any promoter, however strong, in any market. We must have a balance in all these activities. I want to see vigorous, strong companies but I also want to ensure that the marketing added value will be a feature of our approach in the future.

I hope this House can now agree with me that we have been most active in achieving whatever has been possible to countract the unfortunate set of circumstances facing Irish agriculture and in particular the beef and cattle trade in recent months. I believe the measures I have taken, and will be taking particularly in the short term, will help to reassure the various markets particularly in regard to beef coming into the major processing season.

I believe from what I have reported to you here today, Sir, that no fair minded person could accuse either the Government or myself of not having the best interests of the farming community and our export trade at heart, and that our record clearly shows the significant and positive impact of measures we have taken in recent months. I believe that further measures envisaged will ensure that we will resolve these most immediate difficulties. This, of course, leaves absolutely no room for complacency and it is in the interest of all concerned with the agriculture trade to work together in the common interest and to refrain from making hyped statements of what will follow from missions here or there that have been neither called for in host countries nor are appropriate in certain cases.

In passing let me refer to Egypt as a case in point and leave it at that. I want to refrain from making further comment but we do not yet have markets in Egypt. We hope these matters will be resolved as the Egyptians and we want to see them resolved, by consultation at the highest level of veterinary professional knowledge. That is the best way to approach it. Our agriculture production and exports are of vital importance to the economic life of this country and only our combined efforts to continually achieve excellent results will enable them to survive.

Let me conclude on the note on which I started. I think I have demonstrated how important agricultural exports are to the economy generally, to the primary procedures and the general beef industry. Let nobody suggest that beef is more important than people as I have heard reiterated in some cliché comments outside. Let nobody suggest that if a Minister accepts an invitation, as I am doing, to visit any member state in the course of promoting trade that means we put people at a lower level of priority than beef. That is not, cannot and never will be the case. As Minister for Agriculture and Food I have no doubt that that is the sector which has suffered most from the embargo on Iraq.

I regret that the view which operates in The Workers' Party, the Labour Party and the Government cannot be reflected in unanimous condemnation of the Iraqi violation of every fundamental right. Fine Gael should rethink their position and allow this House to have unanimous condemnation which I think will represent fully the wishes of our people that nothing more or less is expected by our partners in the international community.

As was made clear when we commenced proceedings this morning by Deputy Alan Dukes, Leader of Fine Gael, Fine Gael totally condemn the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. They condemn the Iraqi Government's refusal against all principles of international law and practice to allow Irish citizens and other non-nationals of Iraq and Kuwait to leave that country, and we affirmed our full support for the UN Security Council Resolutions. Therefore, let the Minister for Agriculture and Food or any other Member of this House not try to suggest in any way that there is any ambiguity with regard to the Fine Gael position on that aspect.

The world does not want to know Fine Gael's position. The world wants to know our collective position.

What is extraordinary is that the Government appear to take the view — which is one of the symptoms of the problems we have in dealing with foreign affairs issues — that any decision to be made in the area of our foreign policy is the private preserve of Government Ministers or officials in the Department of Foreign Affairs, and when the Government talk of an all party motion, they mean a motion that will satisfy the Government that they are immune from criticism for either the manner in which they have dealt with the crisis in the Gulf to date or immune from criticism in the future as to the manner in which they may handle matters of direct concern to this country and to the international community in the future.

Fine Gael were prepared to give the Government an open cheque either in the context of dealing with the position of Irish nationals who are currently confined to Kuwait and Iraq and who want to leave or to write them a blank cheque in the context of how they deal in the future with the economic consequences of the crisis in the Gulf. However, there is a difference between an all party motion and a motion dictated by the Government which, when not accepted by the main Opposition party, results in Ministers coming into this House and in some way suggesting Fine Gael are not interested in protecting the national position.

Let me set the record straight. It was the Fine Gael Party, ahead of any other party in this House, which met with the relatives of those people who currently have family held in Kuwait and Iraq. Yesterday afternoon, within less than 24 hours of the relatives' committee being formed, Deputy Alan Dukes and a number of Fine Gael Deputies met with them. It was Fine Gael who clearly signalled concern at a very early stage about the manner in which the Government were dealing with the problems created by the crisis in the Gulf.

It is interesting to look at the history of the Government's approach. It was on 2 August that the Iraqi tanks rode across the borders of Kuwait and took away the independence of that country with the intention of subsuming it within Iraq as a province of Iraq. It was not until the publication of the morning papers on Thursday, 9 August, a full week later, that the general public who had relatives in Kuwait and in Iraq who wished to obtain information as to their position were informed of the opening by the Department of Foreign Affairs of an information office. It took the Government nearly a full week to react and set up an information service that some other member states set up the weekend immediately following the invasion.

In fairness to the Government, they have, within the United Nations context gone along with, and again the Minister for Foreign Affairs today reiterated Government support for, the United Nations Security Council Resolutions that are supported by all sides of this House. Yet there has been a strange ambivalence in some respects about the Government's approach to tackling the crisis and it is an ambivalence that has been commented on outside this House. I do not think we do the Irish people any service in the context of the debate in this Chamber today to pretend that that ambivalence does not and has not existed. It is an ambivalence that should never have been there. It was well illustrated in a report in The Irish Times of 22 August when we had in one part of The Irish Times a statement from a meeting of the European Community Foreign Ministers in Paris which said that the Ministers gave the Iraqi Government notice that any harm done to an EC citizen would be considered “as a more grave offence directed against the Community and all its member states — and will provide a united response from the entire Community”. There it appeared that we were adopting a united response with the Community. But what did we learn in the same paper? On the same page there was reference to the fact that the Irish Embassy in Baghdad had been making vigorous representations to the Iraqi Foreign Minister on behalf of Irish nationals held there and it was hoped that citizens of Ireland, a neutral country which has tried to remain neutral throughout the crisis, will be treated similarly to nationals of Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Finland and Portugal. We had our man in Baghdad apparently saying one thing, our man in Paris saying another; and then we had the farce of a meeting of the Western European Union in which the defence group members, who are all in the European Community, met and invited as observers Denmark, Greece, Turkey and Ireland, and since we decided to preserve our neutrality we could not even act as observers. I do not think it could have been put any clearer than in The Irish Times editorial of that day when it said that in the context of the response of the Government to date to dealing with the crisis a clearer voice was required. It raised the issue of what the Community states meant by “a grave offence directed against the Community if any harm is done to Community nationals which will provoke a united response from the entire Community.” It would appear indeed that the only united response that was envisaged was the response of the countries who are members of the Western European Union. What we are doing is pretending to have a neutrality, which in this context no one takes seriously and is contrary to the interests of Irish citizens, because it is in the interests of our citizens in Iraq and Kuwait that we act hand in hand with other member states of the EC.

How is it intended that we will get our citizens out of Kuwait? Is it not the British Embassy who represented our citizens in Kuwait? Is that not the reality? What contingency plans do the Government have? What the Fine Gael Party are anxious to do is not merely to pass a motion along the lines of those accepted by other parties in this House, which basically was a reiteration of a commitment for support of United Nations Resolutions, but to set down a specific action plan which the Government would implement to tackle the crisis.

Neither the Minister for Foreign Affairs nor the Minister for Agriculture and Food has yet adverted to why the Government could not accept the additional matters that this party wished to have addressed. We heard from the relatives of those who are involuntarily being detained in Iraq and Kuwait that they wanted a communications centre with free telephone facilities for Irish families. A communications centre was set up by the British Government which some Members of this House in the Labour Party and The Workers' Party like to take cheap shots at every so often. If the British Government have managed to set up a communications network for the relatives why not this Government? What was objectionable in asking the Government to set up such a communications centre? What major problem would it create? Why should there be a difficulty? In what way are Fine Gael, as the Minister for Agriculture and Food alleges, posturing by asking for such a centre? We are trying to ease the difficulties the relatives of those who are held in Kuwait and Iraq and co-ordinating an information base so that those relatives who wish to get an up-to-date picture as to the position are able to do so. There is no posturing in that. It is a practical proposal.

We asked that the Government call in the Iraqi Ambassador. It is extraordinary that, at the end of week four of this crisis, we have not seen fit to demand that the Iraqi Ambassador assigned to this State be called to be informed directly by the Minister for Foreign Affairs as to what our views are both about the invasion and to demand of him that as the Ambassador accredited by Iraq to this country he tell his Government directly of our demands that our nationals be free to leave. On how many previous occasions have the Irish Government seen fit to call in ambassadors to dress them down in far less serious circumstances than those with which we are no confronted? Yet, that is not an approach the Government have seen fit to take even now. Fine Gael wanted a motion passed by this House to include that provision. What objection have the Government to calling in the Iraqi Ambassador accredited to Ireland? I have heard no explanation for this. Can there be a reason they do not want to call him in? I simply do not understand it. In what way is that posturing? It is clearing the lines of communication so there can be no ambiguity as to where we stand directly with Iraq. The Iraqi Government will be far more impressed by that type of approach than by the passing of an anodyne motion in this House which will not influence one whit what happens in the Gulf but simply reiterates support for the United Nations Resolutions for which we have already expressed our support. Is it not appropriate today for new reasons to call in the Iraqi Ambassador in the context of the continuing obscenity of Saddam Hussein using hostages for television programmes in Iraq?

It emerged yesterday evening that a decision had perhaps been made that women and children who wished to leave Kuwait and Iraq would be allowed to leave. The most recent information our Department of Foreign Affairs can give is they do not know whether that is going to happen. They do not know if the women and children will be allowed leave. Has it occurred to the Minister for Foreign Affairs that apart from having our man in Bagdad talking to officials within the administration of Iraq we should call in the Iraqi Ambassador to ascertain whether women and children are to be allowed leave? We should call him in to ask him why men are not to be allowed leave. We should call him in to ask if this is confined to women and children who are simply dependants of Irishmen who are working in Kuwait and Iraq or will it allow the nurses who have been providing medical and health care to the citizens of Iraq in the PARC hospital in Bagdad who want to leave, the freedom to leave when they so wish. The Minister was not able to offer any information in his contribution on that matter. Why can he not call in the Iraqi Ambassador and demand of the ambassador that he find out from his people in Baghdad what the position is and ask for him to come back later today or early tomorrow morning to clarify the position? What is wrong with a motion passed by this House demanding or asking the Government to call in the Iraqi Ambassador? In what way is that posturing? It is very difficult to understand the reasons for this but I will suggest some in a few minutes.

The other element that Fine Gael wished to address in the motion is the contingency plans the Government have in place to prepare for the possibilities of hospitilities in the Gulf. Everyone in this House on all sides hopes that the problems of the Gulf are resolved without a war. Everyone agrees that Iraq should go back within its own borders, move out of Kuwait and let that country be restored to independence. We can all say until we are blue in the face that we want matters resolved peacefully, but we do not control world events.

The Iraqi leader may not want to get out of Kuwait. Only last night he announced that Kuwait was being formally made a new province of Iraq. That issue has not been mentioned by any of the speakers so far. Deputy Higgins, who so articulately expressed a hope for peace which we all share, is not willing to face up to the possibility that this problem may not be resolved because it may not be possible for it to be resolved peaceably. What is wrong with this House asking the Government to put in place contingency plans to deal with the economic consequences of a confrontation, if it breaks out? Have we not been told already by the Minister for Agriculture that he is apparently taking steps to deal with the economic consequences of the impact on the beef industry of the closing of the Iraqi market? We have just had an entire speech from the Minister for Agriculture dealing with beef, so obviously he is addressing that issue albeit in a way that I suspect will create more problems than it will resolve, but he is addressing it. Is this House not entitled to know what contingency plans are there with regard to meeting energy supplies? Is this House not entitled to know what other contigency plans the Government might have in mind? For example, does any Member of this House know what will happens if it is established within the next 24 hours that Irish women and children can leave Iraq and Kuwait or if ultimately it is established that all Irish nationals can leave Iraq and Kuwait? What contingency plans have the Government put in place to fly Irish nationals out of Iraq and Kuwait?

Not a word of that in his speech.

Not a mention of that in his speech. In the region of 50 to 70 Irish nationals are estimated to be in Kuwait. A number of them have gone underground. I do not know to what extent contact has been made with many of those people. I do not know if they will necessarily be able to find out that they are free to leave, if and when they are free to leave. Have the Government any plans to communicate this? How are they going to tackle the problem? Are there plans waiting somewhere to get people out who are free to leave? What is exceptional about the Oireachtas passing a motion asking the Government to put in place contingency plans? If those plans are there, why has the Minister for Foreign Affairs not come into the House today to tell us what those plans are? Is it a national secret? There is something very odd about the unwillingness of the Government to address these issues.

The Labour Party and The Workers' Party are losing sight of the need not merely to express support for peaceful solutions but to address the specific actions we need to take in this country. Irish citizens will not be helped by our simply calling on Iraq to vacate Kuwait and expressing support for the United Nations Resolutions. That is a part of it but the other part of it is that there are specific things the Government should be doing that are not being done at present. We are entitled to know what contingency plans are in place. We are entitled to know if the Government set up a communications centre. We are entitled to know the reason the Government have not called in, even at this late stage, the Iraqi Ambassador.

We also as a House must address the foreign policy implications of what is happening. The Minister's speech set out the current position but what do the recent events in the Gulf mean for Irish foreign policy? What decisions will be made next week or the following week? What communications will Members of the Oireachtas receive to advise us of developments that take place in the next few weeks? What control will the Oireachtas exercise over foreign policy decisions made? In this vital area it is apparently the Government's view that it is the private preserve of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and his Department. What decisions might be envisaged to be made by the Government in the coming weeks which may place at risk the lives of Irish nationals held in Kuwait and Iraq?

Deputy Higgins, who never loses an opportunity to drop a brick on the Fine Gael Party, suggested that we should bury our differences about foreign affairs committees, in this instance in the national interest.

The implication is that we should all lower our expectations of what this House can do or achieve in this area. This issue is like previous issues which have been confronted in this House in the foreign affairs area in the last nine months, but is more serious than any other in the context of the dangers to the lives of Irish citizens and again reiterates the essential need for this House to have a foreign affairs committee. There is absolutely no valid reason the Government should not agree to the setting up of such a committee which would be of relevance to the ongoing crisis in the Gulf. The crisis will not be over when this House adjourns at 4 p.m. and we all, by Government diktat, go off on holidays until the end of October. The crisis will still be there and no Member of this House will have a forum in which we can properly address that crisis, to demand Government attention or at least force a Government response. That is not the way to deal with foreign affairs issues. Nor is it the way to deal with foreign policy matters.

This crisis highlights more starkly than many of the issues in the foreign affairs area that have been discussed during the course of the past 12 months the need for the establishment of such a committee. Fine Gael will not move from their demand that such a committee be established. By way of motion we raised that issue in the Dáil some months ago when we received the support of The Workers' Party and the Labour Party.

Deputy Higgins stated that when in the Seanad a number of years ago he pushed for a foreign affairs committee at a time when there was a Fine Gael-Labour Coalition Government.

And in the Dáil.

They did not go along with the idea of a foreign affairs committee. Both the Labour and Fine Gael parties did not go along with it. That does not mean policies remain static. I am on the record of this House for many years — and indeed during the lifetime of that Coalition Government — as seeking also the establishment of such a committee. I welcome the fact that all the parties on this side of the House recognise the need for such a committee and have done so for some three and a half years.

The curiosity is that the Progressive Democrats supported the idea of a foreign affairs committee until they went into Government in the summer of 1989. One might have expected that, in this context, the support of the Progressive Democrats for the establishment of such a committee would be forthcoming. Did the Minister for Foreign Affairs seek out the views of the Progressive Democrats before rejecting the idea of a foreign affairs committee yesterday evening? The idea of establishing such a committee, in the context of allowing this House to inform itself of events in the Gulf, threw him into such a state of apoplexy that he abandoned the discussion on what the terms of an all-party motion should be. That is an extraordinary way to approach what is a serious issue. I think I am accurate at this stage in saying that we are the only Parliament in the European Community that does not have a foreign affairs committee.

That is correct.

What justification can there be for that? Of the four specific substantive proposals Fine Gael wished the House to agree to today, which also embraced and included everything the Government wanted, the Government would not agree to one, two, three or four. In fact, yesterday evening, the Government informally indicated that they would, after all, agree to the setting up of a communications centre for the relatives of those forced to remain in Kuwait or Iraq. That was, we were told, unofficially agreed and there was no need to put it in the motion. However the Minister for Foreign Affairs did not mention it today.

Fine Gael are concerned that we have a coherent foreign policy and that in this area we operate in a coherent way, in the national interest, in accord with the international community and in a way that will best protect the position of Irish people currently being kept in Iraq and Kuwait against their will. It is most unfortunate that the Government are not willing, in the context of the specific proposals made by us, to go along with the approach we suggested. Even if we had all joined together in support of the motion the Government wanted things would not be any different at the end of the debate this evening in that the Government would not be required to do anything they have not done to date.

I listened with some interest to Deputy De Rossa's and Deputy Higgins' contributions. I suppose my criticism relates more to Deputy De Rossa, though Deputy Higgins seemed to lose his way on this issue at some stage. It seems the Labour Party and The Workers' Party still have difficulties with the United States. America-bashing is a happy hobby of the Left whenever a foreign policy issue comes up in this House.

That is a disgraceful comment.

Of course, some of those who engage in that sort of bashing will, on other occasions, call on the United States to provide additional visas for Irish emigrants so that they can stay there permanently. That, of course, is a separate matter. When it comes to foreign policy, the United States is always suspect. Indeed, Deputy De Rossa in addressing the approach taken by the United States used what I would describe now as the redundant, ideological politics of the Government of Albania. Obviously the impact of glasnost on The Workers' Party is still sporadic, though I have to admit that if we were not in the era of glasnost and perestroika I would have expected a more strident approach, in the context of the approach taken by the United States.

Your attitude is that President Bush can do no wrong.

I am going to unambiguously express the view that if the United States did not act——

The Deputy is beating about the bush.

——in the way it did, the crisis we would now be discussing would not be the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait but rather the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Let nobody be naive about the intentions of Iraq when they went into Kuwait. Without the movement of United States troops, there would have been absolutely nothing to deter the Iraqi leader from continuing to take over other states, with oil economics, that he deems should be taken over in the economic interests of Iraq. In the context of his criticism of the United States for sending in the troops, Deputy Higgins engaged in a certain degree of polemic about the verbiage of United Nations resolutions.

I did not use that phrase.

A semantical analysis——

I do not like interrupting speakers but is Deputy Shatter in a position to quote speakers accurately? I am not sure if he was here when I spoke. He has attributed to me four things I did not say.

What he lost sight of in a semantical analysis of the United Nations resolutions——

If Fine Gael could make up their minds about a military solution or economic sanctions there would be no such distortion.

——was that part of the United Nations covenant states that if a member state is attacked or invaded it can call——

It is that kind of arrogance that has them where they are.

Deputy Ó hUigín says he did not make certain statements and I am sure you will accept that.

Let the record stand. He indicated that the United States should not have adopted the position they did, in particular at the time when there were flights through Shannon, and said very explicitly that was not in accord with the United Nations resolutions.

I did say that.

In the context of the United Nations covenant, it is quite clear that when a member state is subjected to the type of invasion Kuwait was subjected to, that state can invite other member states to come to their defence. It is also quite clear that that is what Britain and the United States did at the time at the invitation of Kuwait. It would have been an extraordinary abdication of international morality if this State was to turn around and say, "despite the fact that we opposed the invasion of Kuwait and despite the fact that Saudi Arabia may be at risk, we will not, dare not, allow any US flights carrying troops to stop at Shannon. That is not neutrality, but rather appeasement. That is the mentality that brought us down a very slippery slope in the thirties.

The thirties was a bad period — we had the "shirt" movement.

In the context of that sort of neutrality, what it advocates is a sort of pragmatic, amoral foreign policy, disguised under the respectable cloak of neutrality, which allows us to talk endlessly about all sorts of issues but actually never do anything in particular because that would mean we would be specifically seen to take up a position. I do not believe that most people in this State, in the context of this issue, would regard that type of neutrality as acceptable. I have referred to some of this Government's extraordinary omissions and to the need for a foreign affairs committee. Let it be put on the record that we can thank Larry Goodman that we are sitting here today and having this debate. Many days ago when the Opposition parties asked that the Dáil be recalled to debate the crisis in the Gulf the Government made it clear there was no possibility that such a debate would take place. It is only because of the Goodman issue that we are having this debate today. There is absolutely no doubt about that. Unless there is another Goodman crisis or a similar crisis between now and the end of October this House will not sit again to address the problems of the Gulf or of Irish nationals who are kept there. That says something about the Government's attitude.

The Minister for Agriculture and Food denies that the Government were putting beef before people. The Minister very ably put on the record the importance of Irish beef exports to Iraq. One wonders whether the reluctance to call in the Iraqi ambassador, the apparent two-pronged approach of the Minister for Foreign Affairs saying one thing and the ambassador in Baghdad saying something else, and the reluctance of the Government to recall the Dáil and their refusal to establish a foreign affairs committee in the context of this crisis, is all based on one vain hope. It is a hope that if this crisis is finally resolved, this State will, to a far lesser extent than any other State in the EC, have offended the Government of Iraq and that perhaps Larry Goodman's £180 million will be recoverable from Iraq. I do not know whether that is the case but I found what the Minister for Agriculture and Food told us more disturbing than helpful. It seems there is a dependence on that market, in the context of the shipment of cattle, that I believe, in the first couple of weeks of this crisis, prevented the Government taking steps they should have taken.

I am conscious that this is a limited debate and I will conclude in a few minutes. I want to raise two or three other issues very briefly. One of the things we must now do is to reassess our foreign policy in the Middle East. We have adopted certain postures which need to be reviewed and revised. There are approaches we have taken which I believe now can be proved to be quite wrong. That of course is another reason we should have a foreign affairs committee.

Everyone in this House welcomes the release of Brian Keenan that took place last Saturday in a great blaze of publicity. Everyone hopes he is restored to full health and will have a fruitful life when he has recovered from his ordeal. It must be said that Brian Keenan was kept a hostage for four years. While the Government can express their thanks to the Iranian Government for his release, and the Minister is obviously anxious to sell beef to the Iranian Government, in the last six to eight months foreign policy as it is related to the Middle East has been so dominated by the desire to have Brian Keenan released that the policies adopted had been dictated to this Government by kidnappers in Beriut, by government ministers in Teheran and by Yasser Arafat in Tunisia. There is a need now to review our whole foreign policy approach to Middle East issues. We should not be slow to do that.

In the context of the Middle East it was in 1981 that universal criticism was voiced, for example, of the Israeli Government for the bombing of an Iraqi nuclear reactor. Where would the world be today if that action had not been taken? There is a great deal of worry at the moment that the Iraqis possess chemical weapons which, as Deputy Higgins correctly stated, they have been assisted in developing by illegal exports from West Germany. Where would the world be today if Saddam Hussain had the nuclear bomb and if the Israeli Government had not taken that approach? Where would the world be today if, for example, there was a Palestinian state on the West Bank led by Yasser Arafat supporting Saddam Hussein? Do the European Community or the Irish Government seriously believe that an Israeli Government can be coerced into negotiating with the Palestine Liberation Organisation, who have expressed their full support for the invasion of Kuwait and who support a dictator who has not only turned chemical weapons on the Iranians, when there was a war between Iran and Iraq, but on his own Kurdish citizens?

What we have seen happening in the Gulf in the last four weeks demands a radical reassessment of our foreign policy approach to the broad spectrum of Middle East problems. It demands a reassessment by the European Community of this approach to that whole region. We should also say because it has not been put on the record of this House by anyone yet, that it is a grotesque obscenity to see broadcast from the screens of Iraqi television young children held hostage, being patted on the head by a dictator who wants to use them as a human shield against a possible attack on his military installations. That apparently is an approach that the PLO also approve of and we should not forget that. It indicates that much of the verbiage of peace that has come from that organisation about resolving the problems of the Middle East is no more than rhetoric. When that organisation is finally put to the test it is words of war and words of terrorism they are clearly speaking about.

In the context of the Gulf crisis it is my hope that the Government, whatever may be the differences on the floor of this House between us with respect to the wording of motions, will now call in the Iraqi Ambassador and, between now and 4 o'clock, that some speaker from the Government side will tell us what contingency plans are in place to get Irish citizens out of Iraq and Kuwait, if they are allowed out. I hope we will learn from the absence of a foreign affairs committee that there is a need for one. It is my hope that in future when we debate issues of neutrality we will acknowledge that in some contexts we cannot be neutral. When you are talking about human lives, human rights, a State such as Iraq trying to subsume within it an independent State like Kuwait, there is no neutral pose: there is a pose based on the approach taken by the United Nations Resolutions which needs to be vigorously pursued. We should pursue it in conjunction with our European Community colleagues and we should never pursue it in a half-hearted way. If we seek the benefits of the support from the European Community that such a united approach gives us in the context of European political co-operation, we must also take on our shoulders the responsibilities that the united approach also demands. Those responsibilities do not mean that we sit on the sidelines and feel that we cannot even appear as observers at a discussion of the West European Union in case we are contaminated by hearing something that may be said in regard to resolving the problems that affect not just Europe but the entire world as they are currently taking place in the Gulf area.

In my opinion there has not been any event since the Second World War which has so clearly challenged the fundamental national interests of Ireland as this present crisis. Proportionately Ireland has more citizens held illegally against their will in Kuwait and Iraq than any other Western nation. The scale of the implications for the Irish economy are being felt probably more acutely and immediately than in any other EC member state through the closure of a major beef export market and the potentially devastating consequences of that for Irish farmers, industrialists and the general level of confidence in the Irish Stock Exchange.

Add to these acute anxieties the shared interest we have with the European Community and the rest of the Western World in ensuring that the Iraqi regime does not get its hands on the entire strategic oil reserves of the Middle East, and the full extent of the threat to our well-being is revealed.

Ireland, as a small open economy, is one of the most trade-dependent in Europe, with the consequences that anything that damages the international trading environment — and who could argue that Saddam Hussein's control of Mid-Eastern oil would not do so — more than proportionately affects our interests. To paraphrase an old saying which was used when we were more dependent on trade with Britain: "If the world economy catches a cold, then because of our openness, Ireland will get pneumonia".

It is quite obvious therefore that Ireland's national interests in respect of the fall-out from the Gulf crisis are, in some key respects, indistinguishable from those of other countries.

This point compels me to say, on behalf of the Progressive Democrats, that the weight of international opinion, as expressed by the UN and the European Community, is correct in condemning Iraq's annexation of Kuwait, and in demanding that Saddam Hussein unconditionally withdraw from that country. That is why I wholeheartedly welcome the decision of the United Nations Security Council to define the conditions in relation to the effective military policing of the trade sanctions against Iraq.

The decision places the international military response to the Iraqi annexation of Kuwait in a firm, collective and multilateral context. This is an important check and balance against the possibility of any excessive or over-zealous unilateral intervention, and is a further indication of international solidarity and cohesion. This is one of the principles that should underline our ongoing response in foreign policy terms, that is, that all efforts to arrive at a solution to the Gulf crisis must be firmly based on multi-lateralism.

Within the wider international response, under the Italian Presidency, the European Community has sought to co-ordinate both its diplomatic and — through the Western European Union — its military response to the crisis. Ireland has fully supported the entire range of EC diplomatic initiatives but has chosen, on the basis of our traditional policy of neutrality, to distance ourselves from the military response, even to the extent of refusing observer status at the recent Western European Union meeting. Never before has the EC sought to develop such a wide-ranging and far-reaching response to a foreign policy crisis.

Apart from the Gulf crisis, under the Italian Presidency of the EC the first meeting of the Intergovernmental Conference on Political Union will take place next December. Inevitably that agenda will focus on the effective definition, co-ordination and implementation of an EC foreign policy capacity. Inevitably, arising from the experience of the Gulf crisis, the political and military aspects of this process will be inter-related for the obvious reason, which can be clearly seen today, that in certain contexts they are inseparable.

The current crisis teaches us, like no other, that in relation to future European policies Ireland needs to face up squarely to what are its interests; with whom do we share them most closely and to what extent is it in our longer-term interest to deepen our integration with our EC partners, on the one hand, while in other vital matters choosing to keep our distance. Indeed the question arises not only as to where our vital interests lie, but also whether in the longer term we do not also share, in common with our Community partners, certain international obligations as well as rights and interests.

The present crisis has also renewed debate on the possible introduction of a foreign affairs committee in the Dáil. When this was last mooted some months ago, my party, as part of Government, voted against the proposal, not because of any fundamental objection in principle to the idea of widening the range of committees in the House but rather because we believe consideration of this should be part of a more extensive programme of Oireachtas reform. The issue of Oireachtas reform needs to be given more urgent attention. For my part I am committing the Progressive Democrats to ensuring that progress will be made on this issue in line with the agreement in the Programme for Government as soon as possible.

I have tried in my contribution up to this point to confine my remarks to what I would regard as the principles which underline the foreign policy response in relation to the Gulf crisis, and indeed to raise some wider questions about where our longer-term interests lie in regard to the making of foreign policy particularly in an EC context.

However, the most immediate and urgent consideration is our deep humanitarian concerns and obligations in relation to the approximately 350 Irish people, some of these personal friends and constitutents of mine, who are scandalously and illegally held against their will in Kuwait and Iraq by the Iraqi authorities. On behalf of the Progressive Democrats I want to condemn this illegal action in the most forthright terms and also to say to the relatives of those who are trapped that as far as we are concerned, your concerns and the welfare of your family members in Iraq and Kuwait, are the most acute priority facing us in Ireland in relation to the current Gulf crisis.

I am satisfied that our Department of Foreign Affairs are doing everything humanly possible to help in the present unacceptable situation. And I am sure that we here today fervently hope that the report of last night that Iraq is prepared to let women and children go, turns out to be correct. But of course that development, welcome though it would be, would be far from adequate. All citizens, men, women and children, from Ireland and other foreign countries, now detained against their will in Iraq and Kuwait must be allowed their freedom to leave if they so wish.

I wish to turn now to my special area of responsibility and the role of the Department of Energy in this present situation. From the debate so far it is clear that the House recalls quite clearly the impact of an oil crisis both on the world economy and on the domestic Irish economy. It is reassuring, however, that we have at least used the experience of earlier crises to good effect. The world is far better prepared in 1990 to absorb the present disturbances in the oil markets than it was in 1979 and 1973. Psychologically and tactically we are now better able to cope with the required adjustments.

One specific lesson that was learnt from experience is that it is necessary to have adequate stocks. World oil stocks are at an all-time high, and this is the most reassuring aspect of the present situation. There is no shortage of oil in the market nor has any shortage of product appeared in the markets of Western Europe and North America. More importantly, from our viewpoint, there is no shortage of product in the Irish market. Stocks are at prudent levels and indeed will be augmented further. Irish consumers — both household and business — can be reassured that measures taken in recent years and further improved in recent weeks, will meet all normal demand patterns.

While there is a comfortable supply of oil in the market this is not to understate the seriousness of the current Gulf crisis. The sanctions on Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil put in place recently by the United Nations effectively took 20 per cent of current OPEC oil production out of the market. This represents around 7 per cent of current world production. I am heartened to note that, as of today, creative efforts are being made within OPEC to bridge, partially or wholly, this shortfall in supply by additional production in certain OPEC countries. However, even if such an agreement were put into place, it should not lull us into a false sense of complacency. Oil markets will be disturbed for some time, notably as regards price. It is still possible that certain shortages could emerge in world markets.

OPEC production earlier this year reached almost 24 million barrels per day against a demand of 22.5 million barrels per day. This resulted in a stock-build in most of the industrialised world. As a result general stock levels this summer are quite healthy. Nevertheless, as the heating season approaches the call on OPEC oil will increase to 23.5 million barrels per day, and today's OPEC meeting which may agree increased production on the part of key members such as Saudi Arabia and Venezueia, will be an important factor in ensuring that this demand is met.

All Deputies will know that the Irish market is supplied by the direct importation by the private oil companies of a range of products, notably petrol and gasoil. This covers 65 per cent of our oil products consumption. The remaining 35 per cent comes in the form of crude oil which is refined by the Irish National Petroleum Corporation at Whitegate in Cork. The strategic value of having our own refinery is once again highlighted at times of uncertainty as at present. Whitegate is a hydroskimming refinery with a nominal maximum capacity of 56,000 barrels per day. It is currently operating flat out at a technical maximum of just under 50,000 barrels per day. The refinery has a crude and storage capacity of approximately 250,000 tonnes. The INPC have already acted swiftly to increase stocks. In addition output from the refinery is being maximised. I have asked the company that Whitegate be operated at full capacity for the foreseeable future to supply market demands and to build stocks further. The uncertainty in the world markets that I referred to earlier has manifested itself so far in the form of rapid price movement. While no significant shortage has emerged, the predictable nervousness has resulted in price increases which have little to do with the underlying aggregate supply and demand situation.

The price of crude oil and product prices on international spot markets has rocketed since the outbreak of hostilities in the Gulf; the dollar price of spot petrol has risen by over 64 per cent in the last 50 days; the dollar price of spot gasoil has risen by over 63 per cent in the same period; and the dollar price of crude has risen by 80 per cent in the same period.

At the very outset of this crisis some weeks ago, I took immediate steps to add to this country's security of supply. I arranged that additional supply of both crude oil and products be sought and put in position as quickly as possible to further augment existing stocks. First: 10,000 tonnes of gasoil storage was prepared in the ESB facility at the North Wall. This was filled with gasoil in recent days by means of a specially arranged additional shipment; secondly: a 17,000 tonne fuel oil tank has been prepared for gasoil storage in Whitegate. The special cargo in question was moved into Whitegate yesterday; and thirdly: agreement has been reached with Irish Shell Limited to provide an 11,000 tonne depot at Limerick for use by INPC to store petrol. At present, due to the maximum capacity operations at Whitegate, additional petrol storage requirements will be needed by INPC and shipments into the Limerick depot will begin next week; and fourthly: the question of putting further ESB gasoil tankage at Marina is currently being examined and a decision will be made on this within the next 48 hours.

Stocks of gasoil already put in place amount to six days' national supply. Stocks of petrol which will be put in place in the next ten days will amount to five days' national supply. These quantities would meet a 20 per cent national shortfall for a period in excess of 25 days; it is important to recognise the value of prompt stockbuild action at this time. Crude oil capacity storage at Whitegate has been topped up to the greatest possible extent in the last few weeks and, more importantly, I have sought the immediate reactivation of the major Whiddy oil terminal. The work necessary to reopen Whiddy was put in hands right away and I am confident that up to an additional 200,000 tonnes of crude oil can be put in place by operations which will be carried out to the highest possible safety standards and will add another 20 days to national supply.

All these additional supplies, giving a total national supply of between 110 and 120 days, are above and beyond our commitment to the European Community and the International Energy Agency which is to maintain a stock of 90 days' supply. Prior to the Gulf crisis we had around 96 days' stock, thereby making our own contribution to international security. While the 90 days stipulation is a primary line of defence for any country, it is a part of a wider umbrella provision under the statutory requirements of EC regulations. There are similar benefits in participating in the security stocks arrangements of the International Energy Agency. It is important, however, to recognise that the decision to establish these strategic stocks was made following the shortage of the mid seventies. In general they would not be used unless a genuine shortage emerged or was self-evidently imminent. It is not likely that they would be used to play the market and released in such a way as a contra cyclical influence on price. Security of supply is precisely as its title suggests: the stocks are used to ensure that any possible breakdown in supply is countered or prevented.

Ireland is one of the 21 member countries of the International Energy Agency. This agency was established in 1974 as a result of the 1973 oil supply disruption with the view to implementing an International Energy Programme.

The aims of the agency are: to foster co-operation among IEA participating countries and to reduce excessive dependence on oil; to maintain an information system on the international oil market; to encourage consultation and co-operation with oil-producing and other oil-consuming countries; and to formulate policies to safeguard participating countries against the risk of a major disruption of oil supplies and to share available oil in the event of an emergency.

The main requirements of IEA policy are: agreement to share stocks in an emergency; that member countries maintain 90 days' stocks; and that member countries have co-ordinated energy policies.

The governing board are the IEA's main decision-making body and is comprised of senior energy representatives of member states. The governing board have already met during the past month and have arranged a further meeting for Friday next. They are keeping current events under review and are prepared to take whatever action is considered necessary at short notice. I am confident that the IEA will take whatever steps are necessary to ensure a co-ordinated and effective response by the industrialised world to the evolving situation in the oil market. Ireland will play the fullest role in these deliberations.

Unusual events bring out an unusual response. Already I must acknowledge the professional way the INPC have responded to my request. The willing co-operation of the ESB has also been very helpful. In addition, my own Department are getting a first-class response from other agencies involved in identification of additional capacity and in the reactivation of Whiddy.

One of the reasons the world is far better prepared than it was for the oil shocks of 1973 and 1979 is that conservation measures and conservationists' attitudes fostered by these earlier events have resulted in modern economies being less energy-intensive. In short we get more output from far less input of oil. It seems a pity that it requires milestone unsettling events such as an oil crisis to galvanise people to act in their own self-interest. This is not a sentiment I am expressing for the first time. Earlier this year I made a major announcement on conservation setting out my objectives and stating the first immediate steps that would be taken. This initiative was further facilitated by an additional allocation of a half million pounds earlier this year on budget day.

Since then I have set up a National Energy Conservation Advisory Group which will examine the current conservation programme and make recommendations on additional conservation measures that could be taken. Industrial, commercial and academic expertise is represented on this group which is to report to me by the end of the year.

The composition of this group is as follows: Mr. Pat O'Malley, Chairman, Special Adviser to the Minister for Energy; Mr. Patrick Duffy, Managing Director, Moy Insulation Limited; Mr. John McCarrick; Dr. Aidan O'Boyle, Director of Industrial Policy, Confederation of Irish Industry; Dr. Eoin O'Neill, Director of Innovation Services, O'Reilly Institute, Trinity College; Mr. David Taylor, Manager, Energy Programme, Eolas; and Professor G.T. Wrixon, National Microelectronics Research Centre, University College, Cork.

Even though the steps to set up this new national group pre-dated the current Gulf crisis, the present heightened prices will, no doubt, help them and my Department to get consumers to focus on further conservation measures. In addition a number of other initiatives were taken earlier in the year which will get further impetus from the current conditions. A specific group, entitled the Group to Improve Efficiency in Electricity End-Use, has been set up. Electricity accounts for one third of the country's total primary energy requirements. Projects have also been initiated to promote installation of energy management systems in hospitals and to investigate the potential of naturally occurring warm ground water. These efforts which I have cited are in addition to my Department's ongoing conservation programme. On behalf of the Department Eolas operate a continuing conservation and energy efficiency service for the public in general and have a specific programme in 1990 geared towards certain sectors, notably the hotel, food and chemical industries.

I regard energy conservation as a most important element in my Department's energy policy. Conservation can make a substantial contribution to satisfying the country's energy needs, to the balance of payments, to improving competitiveness of Irish industry and, of course, to redressing environmental damage resulting from some forms of energy consumption. While I sincerely hope that the current high prices for oil and oil products in the international markets will come down rapidly it may, ironically, serve a useful purpose. Energy conservation usually has an attractive financial payback whether it is for major industrial installations or a simple lagging jacket around a household water tank. Increased energy prices will enhance this pay-back and may encourage a further conservation drive similar to those in the seventies and early eighties.

Continuing attention will be given to the promotion of alternative energy resources where technical and reliability criteria can be met and where it is economical to do so.

Hydropower contributes to some 5 per cent of our electricity requirements and there is some small potential for further hydro developments. As regards windpower, international experience indicates that the best means of wind energy development is through the use of wind farms, that is large numbers of wind generators in a single location. However, the economics of such schemes depend very much on the capital costs involved and on the price paid for the electricity produced. A windfarm project in the west of Ireland is under active consideration in my Department at present. My Department are keeping in touch with international research developments in relation to tidal and wave power, solar energy, biomass and other alternative energy possibilities.

Another theme of the debate so far has been a large degree of consensus on the lessons of the past. Ireland is a small open economy which cannot insulate itself against adjustment required in the world market place. Deputies will be aware that, in the UK, petrol prices have increased by more than 20p per gallon in direct response to developments in the Gulf. These increases have yet to affect the Irish market. We have all seen in recent weeks and in the past that economies as powerful and as influential as the United States are still price takers when it comes to a commodity such as oil. Attempting to contrive a situation where Irish consumers would somehow be protected from world price movements would be wrong as the price message going to oil consumers would be false and it would ultimately lead to a misallocation of resources. Similarly, increased foreign borrowing to be used as an offset against the impact of the real transfer from oil consuming countries to oil producing countries was clearly demonstrated to be one of the international follies of the early eighties. Countries which attempted this still took many years to work off the additional burden placed on them and many of them have not worked off that balance.

In conclusion, I can summarise by saying that we are facing an unsettled and uncertain world oil market. For example, the spot price of petrol plunged by a massive $57 per tonne or over 14 per cent at Rotterdam by close of business last night but by 11.30 this morning prices had changed tack and increased by $7 per tonne. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that we are in a much better state of preparedness than for previous oil shocks. Oil supply in Ireland is adequate and has been enhanced recently by the arrangements I have mentioned already. Consumers and the public in general cannot be blamed for slipping into a frame of mind which takes oil supply for granted when the memory of earlier crises fade and when prices are steady and relatively low. Given, however, the impact of political events in the post war era, starting with the crises induced by the Korean war, the Government's strategic planning does not rely on the market and their policy on adequate stocks is one of constant preparedness.

I should like to begin my contribution by refuting some of the allegations made today about Fine Gael and their efforts, as it were, to sabotage this debate. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Minister for Agriculture and Food, Deputy Michael O'Kennedy said just before I had to leave the House that the only reason our motion was not accepted by the Minister was because we had included a clause calling for a foreign affairs committee. That was not true and Deputy Alan Shatter in his contribution outlined all clauses in our motion which the Minister, and the Government, had refused to accept.

Any agreement between the party leaders about the wording of the motion did not imply acquiescence or total agreement to something the Government were putting forward. Our understanding was that the negotiations would continue. Fine Gael were still involved in those negotiations when I got a call from the Minister at 10.30 p.m. last night telling me that the time had passed, he had a deadline to meet and he had to ring somebody to tell him whether or not there was a motion. That was the end of the discussions and it is important that people know what happened. At the time I was en route to the Minister to try to convince him to incorporate some of our proposals in the motion.

A debate on a motion here today would have been a desirable means by which to send a message to the Iraqi Government but we have been told by the Minister — I am absolutely satisified about this — that the message has gone loud and clear to them that this country, through our Government, fully support the United Nations' Resolutions and are fully involved with the EPC system. That is not in any way in doubt. What we wanted to do today was to give an Irish flavour to an Irish debate: this is the Irish Parliament, we are Irish parliamentarians and we are speaking on behalf of Irish people who expect us to put forward their concerns and their anxieties. I was horrified when listening to an interview the other evening to hear a relative of a nurse who is trapped in Iraq saying that it appears the Government have made a choice between bodies and beef. That was an appalling thing to say but I could not blame that man for saying it because that seems to be the impression the Government have given.

I am surprised at the way the Labour Party and The Workers' Party appear to have given a stamp of approval to what the Government are doing without asking them to incorporate some further points. I am not surprised people got the impression that the Government had made a choice between bodies and beef. It is absolutely clear to the people who have relatives in the region that the Dáil would still be in recess until 24 October — I accept fully that diplomatic discussions are going on behind the scenes — if a major crisis had not arisen in the beef industry and particularly in one company. The Government did not appear to want to answer the calls of the Opposition to reconvene the House so that they could tell us what they were doing about the Irish citizens in the region. Yet they are willing to come in and tell us what they are doing about Irish beef.

I was deeply disappointed with the Minister's speech in so far as he did not attempt to outline what exactly has been going on behind the scenes so as to assure the relatives of the people in the region that everything is being done to ensure their safety and so on. I do not doubt that the Government, and our diplomats, are doing everything to ensure their safety but it needs to be spelt out to their relatives. It is interesting to note that it was not until page 4 of his speech that the Minister said, "The safety and welfare of our 350 or so citizens in Kuwait and Iraq has been and will remain the Government's first priority. All the Irish citizens in both countries are safe". I would have thought that merited mention in the first paragraph of his speech. Deputy Dukes was correct in criticising the Minister for not saying in the first paragraph of his speech that Ireland condemns the Iraqi invasion. In page 3 of his speech he indicated that the Twelve strongly condemned the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. We are wholeheartedly behind that statement but I heard the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, saying on television that Britain and she condemned the Iraqi invasion. Are the Irish Government reluctant to say that they, and not the Irish Government as part of the EC, condemn it? Throughout his speech the Minister condemned the invasion but one wonders why the Government have not said Ireland condemns it. The Minister for Energy, Deputy Molloy, said that the Progressive Democrats condemns it, and he used the words, "wholeheartedly condemn" but the Government did not say that, so one has to be critical of that.

What use would this debate be today if we in the Opposition could not highlight on behalf of the people who are concerned what we think this Government should be doing and ask them to do it? The invasion of Kuwait took place on 2 August. It was not until 8 August that the Government responded and instituted a direct telephone information line. I got calls from some of the relatives over the long weekend. They told me they had telephoned the Department and a security man had answered. Some of them were lucky enough to be told, "Your message will be passed along to a duty officer" who was not there. They had to wait until Tuesday to talk to an officer of the Department of Foreign Affairs. It is not good enough that it took the Government six days to institute a special telephone line. I was on my holidays in Cork when I heard about that phone line — I know the number of the Department of Foreign Affairs off by heart because I have used it often enough — and I was amazed to hear it was the main line of the Department of Foreign Affairs. One would have thought that this crisis demanded a special private number where people would not have to take their place behind somebody ringing the Department to ask about a passport or some other general query. As I said the special information service was not announced until six days later. Some parents rang the Department on Tuesday and eventually contacted somebody but it was not good enough to tell them that if they wanted information they were as well off to read the newspapers. That was not a way to handle people who were desperately anxious and had no information about the safety and welfare of their relatives. Some of their relatives still have not had any communication with their kin in the Middle East. I would like the Minister at the end of this debate or at some other time to tell me that contingency plans have been set up in his Department to deal with any crisis, even one of lesser proportions. In any event, a direct phone line should be available immediately, the number should be flashed onto our television screens and given out on radio on the first day, not six days later and not, as in this instance, over a long weekend when it was not possible to find out from an official source what was happening. That is why the relatives in their meetings with me and others have been critical.

Things have improved. I do not want to be completely negative. Last night the Minister said he did not agree with the Fine Gael motion. He said what we wanted was already in train. I do not see any reference in his speech to what he said to me last night. He says somewhere will be be made available for the parents and the relatives to have a weekly meeting but that is not what they are seeking. They want an office, a room, a space paid for by the Government which they can man, keep in touch with the other relatives and pass on information. At present one relative gets a call from a relation in Iraq — unfortunately only Iraq at the moment because there is very little contact with Kuwait — and suggests that another parent be contacted and told their daughter or sone is fine and sends their regards, or to say he or she is fine or depressed or whatever. The relatives' committee have to do all that using their own phones. That is not good enough. The Government should be reacting in a more humane way.

I am now calling on the Minister to make an office available with phone lines and a Fax, as he intimated to me last night he was going to do. The relatives are willing to man the office. They feel there is a need for this kind of co-operation because it helps people in trouble to talk to others who are in a similar situation. I hope the Minister will be true to his word. I suppose it would be cynical to suggest that he has not put it in today's speech because he feels there is enough in the speech to be highlighted, but that he will use it as another announcement another day to get more publicity out of it. I do not mind if that is what is behind what he is doing here today. I just want to hear him say that this facility is available and the people can judge for themselves whether it is a cynical exercise. The relatives and friends will be grateful for that kind of assistance.

It is difficult to explain to relatives that, despite an EC ban on senior visits to Iran, the Government have used all their diplomatic skills and powers at EC level to get the EC to change that rule. I understand that there is open access now. We have not been told what we asked from the Iranian Government. I am quite sure they had to make some comment on Salman Rushdie, the cause of the original ban. It is interesting to note that we have not been told whether the EC gave in and said it would allow ministerial visits without commitment from the Iranian Government. We have no information about this. It is difficult to explain why the Minister, Deputy O'Kennedy, can pack his bag and travel to Teheran to plead for a beef deal — which would be very welcome — but, as a relative said, it seems to be a choice between bodies or beef.

My party leader and Deputy Shatter have expressed great surprise at the absence of the Iraqi Ambassador. Why is he not sitting in the VIP Gallery like many other ambassadors when there was this type of debate in the Houses? I have not seen in the newspapers or heard on radio or television that the ambassador has even set foot in this country since the crisis started. The Minister tried to get me to withdraw that section of the Fine Gael motion on the basis that we did not need him here; we did not need him to know what we were thinking because we had direct access through our ambassador in Iraq. That is fine, but an ambassador accredited to this country is responsible for the linkage between this country and his own. I do not accept that sending our ambassador in Baghdad to the Iraqi Department of Foreign Affairs or even to the President's Office is a sufficient response to the question: why is the ambassador not here today? I urge the Minister even at this stage to call the ambassador. There seems to be an impression that it would jeopardise EC unanimity, or maybe give a wrong message to Iraq, if we appeared to be carpeting the ambassador. We are not. His job is to be the ambassador to Ireland, the link with his own country. That is what he is being paid for and that is what we should be using him for. I ask the Minister not only to send him the transcripts of this debate but to summon him here and speak to him. We did not cause any diplomatic incidents when we called in the British Ambassador over the last number of years. Many ambassadors have been called in and we still have diplomatic relations with those countries. I cannot understand the caution and coyness of the Minister.

One of the areas which has not been highlighted in the debate here today — and I am trying not to go over areas that have already been covered by my party — is what Saddam Hussein has done about closing embassies. If there are rules of war — and I am not sure there are — the concept of consular activity being sacrosanct has been respected by all civilised nations. I believe that Saddam Hussein in closing the embassies has breached major international agreements and understandings and it will be very difficult for countries to look again at reopening embassies when this conflict is over. The European newspaper of 24 August has a front page article about the withdrawal and the order to consular activities to close by last Friday. A Jordanian brigadier general was forced to say, and I quote: “Western diplomats in Kuwait are a time bomb that will be used to launch that attack”. One has to assume he means that a provocative order by Saddam Hussein will perhaps lead George Bush or others to attack Iraq. That has not been the case. We have seen the expulsion of Iraqi diplomats from the US but it has not brought about the attack Saddam Hussein might have hoped for and that he would be able to blame some other country for starting a war. It has always been the case that people who are wittingly or unwittingly trapped in a country where war broke out have been allowed to leave in safety, or at least to seek shelter in their own embassy. That protection has now been withdrawn for a number of non-nationals in Kuwait.

The British Embassy in Kuwait is still operating and I would like to pay tribute to them for continuing to liaise with Irish people there. In fact at one of my meetings yesterday with relatives one mother told me that she had had a personal call from the British Embassy to tell her about the whereabouts and safety of her daughter and her grandchild. In fact she got that information from the British Embassy before she got any information through our own Department of Foreign Affairs. For that we should be extremely grateful. I understand other EC embassies have also been very helpful to Irish nationals, particularly in Kuwait.

The Government have not made clear what exactly they have in mind for the Irish nationals if and when they are released. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Collins, seemed reluctant to tell me privately or to tell this House what he has in mind if something happens. There was no coyness and no reluctance on the part of the Minister and the Government to let us all know exactly what contingency plans had been made for the pending release of Brian Keenan. I want now to say how happy and how thrilled we all are that Brian Keenan is now safely home with his family. It was poignant to hear him on television and on the radio saying "6050 home is where the heart is". How many of our 237 PARC employees and the remaining 50 in Iraq and the 50 to 70 Irish people in Kuwait and all the other non-nationals are now saying that to themselves? Home is where the heart is and it is where they want to be if it is at all possible to leave. I know from my own information that one private company has offered a jet to Aer Lingus and has it standing by in a neighbouring country ready to bring home Irish nationals. But we do not know whether the Government are involved in any kind of arrangement like that and I believe we should know. It would be a consolation to the relatives here of the people trapped in Iraq and Kuwait — who are the only voice those trapped people have — to know that sitting on or very close to a tarmac near Iraq or Kuwait is a couple of planes suitable to bring Irish nationals home.

This man, President Hussein, seems to be a schizophrenic and as such a monster that we do not know whether his statement made last night has any substance, although on the 1 o'clock news he seemed to have moved a little further saying that the releases would be issued by tomorrow for the women and children. Again there was no clarity about the employees of the PARC Hospital. We do not know what President Hussein might do. He might conceivably give a very short space of time for people to leave and then close the borders again. Our Government has not told us whether something has been done.

Those are the reasons Fine Gael here today wanted to be the voice of the voiceless. We did not want to be part of a motion that did not more than confirm what we have all already confirmed, our total and complete support for the United Nations and the EPC co-operation. We wanted to get across the message to those people out there that we are aware of their concerns and that they were being handled here in this House.

The other matters causing great concern are the rumours and the counter-rumours. I know that if I had a relative in one or other of those countries I would be very concerned. Indeed during the Iran-Iraq war my sister was an employee of PARC out there, so I know in a very slight way what kind of concerns people have. Can you imagine, a Cheann Comhairle, if you had a relative out there and you heard on the news — and again nothing more has been heard about it — that there were two large grain stores being prepared and turned into dormitories to house hostages? We heard that on one news bulletin and then it died away, but this rumour caused great concern. What was this madman doing? What did he intend to do? To see him sinking to the low of having small, terrified hostages on television with him patting their heads and trying to pretend that he had a concern for these children and their parents is sickening. I thought, that is a dangerous man, that is a man for whom there are no limits to the lengths he will go to get what he wants. In some way our Government are giving the impression — perhaps it is not a fair impression — that there is a certain complacency and that their main energy and exercise is for beef and is for getting another contract in order to fill the gap in our economy and in our beef industry that is going to occur if and when the Goodman empire has an examiner put in and perhaps collapses, which we all hope will not happen. They are the impressions given.

I want to speak about the whole issue raised by Deputy Michael D. Higgins. He appeared to be having a go not only at Deputy Peter Barry, who is not here today, but also at Fine Gael and the whole issue of neutrality. I did not hear Deputy Higgins or his party getting themselves into a terrible state when President Gorbachev was here. They do not seem to get themselves exicted over Aeroflot flights etc. How does Deputy Higgins or anybody else know whether there are army personnel on those flights? They stop down in Shannon. They may not necessarily be wearing their battle fatigues or their uniforms. But it is a cynical effort to try to imply that some kind of breach of our neutrality has been exercised by allowing planes to refuel at Shannon.

We are part of the United Nations; we are part of the motions, and many of the motions call for full co-operation and assistance by all those countries endorsing the motions. In Motion 661, which was passed on 6 August — prior to motion 665 which is the one which seemed to worry Deputy Higgins most and which was calling for a type of military intervention — it is clear that the United Nations supported "the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence in response to the armed attack by Iraq against Kuwait in accordance with Article 55 of the Chapter". It was under that Article that Saudi Arabia and Kuwait called in the US. We endorsed that motion. Is it unrealistic or unreasonable to expect that in our efforts to endorse that motion we give assistance by refuelling those planes for those people? The final part of Motion 661 also calls upon all States: "to take appropriate measures to protect assets of the legitimate Government of Kuwait and its agencies". We can parse and analyse these motions all we want but we are in with the big boys, we are a member of the United Nations; we have to play our part, and we cannot parse and analyse ourselves out of these motions just because we think somehow or other our neutrality is being threatened. I do not believe our neutrality is being treatened by people stopping off at Shannon in this instance and in accordance with the motions. I will just have to agree to differ with Deputy Higgins.

In regard to the criticism the Deputy made of Deputy Peter Barry's comments about whether we should sit in as observers of the WEU, other countries who are not members of the WEU were willing to be informed and at least hear what other countries were talking about in that forum. I do not believe again that it would jeopardise us or in some way militate against us in some other future fora if we sat in and heard. We will only perhaps be able to change a course of action that we might not want by at least knowing what that course of action is. We were not calling for the Government to participate. Again I think it is a bit of window dressing to say that it would have been totally wrong for us to do that. Others countries were able to do it and they have not come in for the kind of criticism that the Labour Party, The Workers' Party and indeed the Government seem to imply would be made.

On the issue of PARC and its employees, I had a meeting with that organisation along with my party leader. We were briefed by them about the situation. Undoubtedly there is concern about the employees there and many of them whose contracts are not up do wish to leave if the opportunity arises. I have been assured by PARC that there will be no problem with that. I hope that assurance will continue to come. They will not hold people to their contracts. They will be entitled to leave. People Whose contracts have been completed are still being paid, are still working, and that is to be welcomed in the interim.

There is criticism, and I would have to join in it, that PARC did not react speedily enough at the begining of the crisis by helping people who wished to leave immediately to do so. It appeared as if a week went by before they took on board the potential seriousness of the crisis. There are people who could have left then. Not all of them would have wanted to leave. They are now beginning to get their act together with regard to communication with the relatives and families here. It is important that communication be kept open and that every effort he made by the PARC organisation to assure people that they are ready and able to get the PARC staff out of Iraq as quickly as possible.

Efforts should be made by PARC to give shelter to the other Irish nationals who are in Baghdad or Iraq. It is probably more frightening for those Irish people in Iraq and Kuwait who are not under the PARC banner. They do not have the protection of a big organisation. PARC are doing humanitarian work there, so they have a certain protection. I would be much more frightened if I were in some other job. I hope that PARC might be able to offer shelter to other Irish people in Iraq so that they can be with Irish citizens and have solidarity with them.

Much has been said about Fine Gael trying to put into this motion a controversial element about a foreign affairs committee. When can we get an apportunity to raise this issue except when we are having a debate about foreign affairs? In his speech the Minister for Energy, Deputy Molloy, said something which made me smile. He said that the Progressive Democrats are in favour of a foreign affairs committee but they would rather see it in the wider context of overall Dáil reform. He reminds me a bit of St. Francis when he was still in his wayward days and he prayed to the Lord saying, "Give me chastity and continence, but not yet".

That was St. Augustine.

I got my saints mixed up. I am sure Deputy Molloy does not mind as long as I am likening him to a saint; he is probably pleased. His party were willing to have a foreign affairs committee. Let me see their muscle in Government by getting that foreign affairs committee established. If we had a foreign affairs committee it could have been called together on 3 or 4 August to be properly briefed as to what was happening. It is now the end of August and this is the first time we get an opportunity to hear anything about it. I, Deputy Higgins and the others have to rummage for information and we have had no opportunity to get any briefing. A foreign affairs committee could have done that.

I urge the Minister to continue his efforts on behalf of the Irish people trapped in Kuwait and Iraq and urge him to put Ireland's point of view to the United Nations and keep this House informed as to what the Government are doing about this crisis.

Having, listened carefully to what has been said, particularly by the Fine Gael spokespersons, I find it regreattable that it was not possible for the House to speak with one voice on an agreed resolution from this country presented to Iraq and to the international organisations. I fully accept that they condemn, as we all do, the aggressive, appalling, outrageous, unpprovoked attack by Iraq on its small neighbour, Kuwait. It is one thing for an individual party to do but it is another thing for a unified resolution to have come forward from this country as a whole on that issue.

Deputy Shatter mentioned a number of connected items they wished to have included in the resolution. I agree with all of them as individual items. He said that the Iraqi Ambassador should have been called in, that there should be contingency plans provided for, a communications centre set up and a foreign affairs committee set up. I agree with each and every one of those. All of those things should be done, but I do not think any of them, individually or collectively, should have been used as a basis for denying this House, on a matter of such crucial importance affecting our citizens trapped in Iraq, the opportunity of presenting a united front on what is a national matter and a matter affecting the EC and other nationals also. The matter is serious and threatening and it must be of grave concern to every Member of this House.

As day follows day one can fall into the trap of thinking that this problems will settle and that diplomacy may settle it, that negotiations may take place and that in some way all will work out and nothing dramatic will happen. It would be a very grievous and serious mistake to fall into that trap. The situation is extremely dangerous and it is very hard to see how the matter will or can be resolved by diplomatic means, much as I earnestly hope that it will. It might be resolved if Saddam Hussein decides that he will withdraw from Kuwait. It seems quite clear to me from his pronouncements, and looking at his history and his record, that he is not just going to do that. He may talk about it but he will not do it. If one rules that out, what is left? The question then is whether the multilateral force at present in Saudi Arabia, made up of Americans, Egyptians, Syrians and others, will sit in the desert, in 50 degrees of heat, indefinitely and do nothing about it. I do not think that will happen either. If neither of those things happens we are heading towards a conflagration in that region with very serious implications for the region and for the EC nationals, including our own, if they do not get out of there. The matter is extremely urgent. I agree with the Members who said they are not satisfied that all that could be done is being done. We do not know what approaches have been made and what responses have been received from the Iraqi side, but we do know that we are dealing with an extremely dangerous dictator in the form of Saddam Hussein.

Deputy De Rossa was talking about undemocratic situations in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. I cannot recall the last time any general election took place in Iraq or that Saddam Hussein was ever elected by popular vote of the people of Iraq. Any assessment of the situation in Iraq would show that he would be very unlikely to be elected for Baghdad South-Central, never mind for the Iraqi country as a whole. Here is a man who notched up one million deaths between Iraqis and Iranians, in his advanture in invading Iran, from which he has now pulled back. Through his activities one million people have died for absolutely nothing and the position remains unchanged. He has butchered 20,000 Kurdish dissidents in some Iraqi cities and used the horrific weapons he has at his disposal. We are aware he has chemical weapons, nerve gas and mustard gas which, as my colleague, Deputy Higgins, recounted this morning was supplied by the Germans. One cannot help recalling that they have no little experience in the manufacture of poison gas and the use thereof.

Therefore, this is not some veiled threat from this dictator, Saddam Hussein. We should not say, "He has these things but he is not the kind of person who would use them". He has used them in Iran and against his own Kurdish citizens in Iraq. We know he is quite prepared to use them again. He has a very powerful array supplied for the most part by the major powers in the world, who are now busy at the United Nations and its Security Council bringing forward resolutions,. They were supplied by the Soviet Union and a vast quantity of his intercontinental missiles were supplied by China, the United States, Britain and France. It will indeed be Ironic if we find, as we likely will, the soldiers of the multinational forces being attacked by horrific weapons supplied by their own countries. That is a very real possibility.

I was extremely disappointed when the PLO, and Mr. Yasser Arafat, gave their full support to Saddam Hussein in his adventures. For the life of me, I cannot understand what motivated them to do so. References has been made here to the Palestine question and the position in Israel, which is motivated by the need to maintain its own security. Many people have come to the conclusion that Israel is paranoid about its concern for its own security but, perhaps, they will rethink that now in the light of events in the Gulf, having regard to the fact that the PLO and Yasser Arafat have condoned and agreed with the destruction, removal and obliteration of a small state, namely, Kuwait and brother Arabs at the hands of Saddam Hussein. The Israelis must be wondering now, given that the PLO, who seek an independent State on the West Bank, are prepared to condone the destruction of a fellow Arab state, what their lot would be in the event of the PLO having the ability, along with Mr. Saddam Hussein, to bring their missiles into play from the West Bank of the River Jordan. Perhaps they are not as paranoid as people first thought.

Deputy Shatter made a very important point this morning which bears repeating. He recalled the fact that had it not been for the attack by the Israelis, who destroyed the Iraqi facility for making nuclear bombs in 1981, not alone would Saddam Hussein have at his disposal poison gas, nerve gas and the rest of his massive arsenal he would also have nuclear weapons. That is a horrific thought but a fact. What would also have thoughts and positions be if Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons at his disposal? That was a very real probability and he would have been quite prepared to use them against anybody who stood in his way.

It has been suggested that Saddam Hussein is a lunatic, just as some thought Hitler was a lunatic.

However neither was a lunatic. We are dealing with somebody who is very cool and calculating. He is also extremely brutal but, certainly, not a lunatic. He would use the military might at his disposal if he thought he would get his way. We must regard the situation as critical and urgent, particularly so far as our own nationals are concerned. Has everything been tried? I am not satisfied that it has. I note that the famous, or infamous as the case may be, President Waldheim of Austria, for example, made a trip to Baghdad and brought back 100 Austrian citizens who had been detained by Saddam Hussein in Iraq. I do not know whether the Taoiseach, or Minister for Foreign Affairs, have given any consideration to going on a similar mission but, certainly, everything must be considered. We have two Government jets and the Minister for Foreign Affairs has been scouring the world making calls at every capital he can think of. Perhaps the one capital that should be called on now is Baghdad having regard to the relationship one thought he had built up with the Iraqis but which now appears to be lying in dust at our feet.

I sincerely hope the statement about the women and children comes to fruition quickly but I would ask those people who have relatives in the region, in the light of the record of this man, not to raise their hopes too high on this issue until we see what transpires. I hope their release comes about but one cannot be certain about anything until they arrive.

I must give our full support to the multinational force and the measures taken by the Until Nations must be given every opportunity to succeed. The United Nations must guarantee the integrity of small, weak and defenceless states not only in the Gulf but everywhere. If Saddam Hussein is allowed to get away with this and annex Kuwait then no small state anywhere in the world can feel secure and the gurantees and grand statements at the United Nations and the Security Council will count for absolutely nothing.

The likely implications for us in Ireland are potentially serious. Our trading position is critical and it is very difficult to say how it is going to evolve. The sector which has been most seriously affected, quite clearly, is agriculture. I do not profess to have much knowledge of the agricultural scene but I have often wondered whether our agricultural sector is overly dependent on beef, to the exclusion of other potentially profitable and very worthwhile activities in the area of import substitution. Should not the agricultural industry be induced to diversity to a far greater extent rather than direct all its energies towards the beef sector? That danger has been highlighted. Urgent plans ought to be preposed to diversity and we should seek alternative markets for our meat. We should endeavour to produce some of the agricultural products we import.

On the issue of energy I am not sustained by the comments of the Minister for Energy who has spoken. If hostilities break out in the Gulf and it has to be seen now in the domain of probability rather than possibility a serious energy crunch will hit Western Europe in general and will hit us in this country also. I do not know that we have made any realistic efforts at finding alternative sources of energy or developing alternative sources of energy or indeed in the area of conservation of energy. We have been content to let matters drift as before in the hope that all will come right in the end; perhaps it will but we must make our plans well in advance. Those plans should have been made by now.

I agree with much of the sentiment expressed by other speakers here this morning. The crucial matter is that the diplomatic option must be pursued but the objective of the diplomacy must be — and there must be no escape from this — the withdrawal of Iraq from Kuwait. That is not to say that the Labour Party hold any brief for the former regime there of Sheikh Al Sabah and his family. Nevertheless the way to change a Government and a country is not by the invasion of a small country like that and its annexation by a very strong neighbour. Other methods have to be found and used. Iraq is no less a dictatorship than Kuwait as are all the countries in that region. The matter is critical and urgent. I would like an assurance that every possible avenue is explored to avert war in that region and to secure the safety of our citizens there.

Deputy Garland rose.

I appreciate that the Deputy has been assured that he would get in before 4 o'clock. That hope is still there. I am now calling the Minister of State.

Can we have an indication of how many Deputies wish to speak and, perhaps come to some arrangement about time?

Can we take five minutes each?

An Leas Cheann Comhairle

The Minister of State is aware that there are others who wish to contribute and we would rely on his sense of democracy and fair play.

I will keep my contribution brief and allow the other speakers to contribute. I want to refer to the situation in the Gulf and the impact it has on this country and to make some reference to the discussion which took place yesterday in regard to that impact. Undoubtedly the situation in Iraq has a profound influence on the Irish economy and it is everybody's wish that that influence does not turn out to be a major disaster. Only time will tell. However, I do want to refer to the contribution made in the House yesterday by the leader of the Labour Party, Deputy Spring, and to say that he did a disservice to himself, to this House and to the country.

Nonsense.

Let me say a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, that I have the utmost respect for Deputy Spring. He is a particularly good friend of mine but I feel that the contents of his contribution yesterday will have done one of our top international companies and the country generally a considerable amount of damage.

Nonsense.

The speech of the Minister for Industry and Commerce expressed the same sentiments.

If Deputy Spring is adamant that what he said is factual, that is fair enough. Listening to him yesterday I was reminded of allegations——

The country knows it.

——he made in this House previously on the Fairbrother case which were never substantiated and which were found to be very much not in accordance with the facts.

(Interruptions.)

I do not speak for Larry Goodman. I do not know him. I think I have met him twice in my life but I do have to stand up today on a personal basis and defend what he has done. Larry Goodman and his organisation have created more jobs in this country in the last ten years than the Labour Party did in their four years in Coalition.

Scandalous rubbish.

I will not repeat this. If what the Deputy hears weighs too heavily on his ears he has an alternative. He cannot continue to interrupt anybody who is in possession.

If I was saying what the Minister of State is saying I would be ruled out of order.

The issue is very relevant.

The Chair will decide who is in order.

(Interruptions.)

If the Deputy interrupts again I will ask him to leave. I have had enough of this.

We have had enough.

The contribution I am making is very relevant because I am referring specifically to the influence of the Iraqi situation on the Irish economy. I know that what I am saying is not welcome to members of the Labour Party because they know in their hearts that the language used and the accusations made yesterday by their Leader were in no way something of which they could be proud.

Yesterday's business was conducted yesterday.

My concern is that accusations were made in this House yesterday. Yesterday evening I heard on a news report on television a statement from the Goodman organisation pointing out the factual position in regard to some of those accusations.

The news analysis.

I have not heard any further clarification or substantiation of those accusations being made by Deputy Spring since then.

Did the Minister of State speak to the Minister for Industry and Commerce?

I believe he has seriously drawn this House into disrepute in the accusations he made here yesterday.

Scandalous nonsense.

I am not satisfied that it has not been substantiated carefully. I am particularly concerned when I recall some previous accusations made by the same Deputy on which he was very silent when the actual position was pointed out. Can I make another point? We seem to have an unbelievable ability in Ireland to want to kick a man when he is down. I do not speak for Larry Goodman.

The Minister of State is doing a good job.

As a sportsman — Deputy Spring is a sportsman too — I do not think we should take the opportunity now to kick a man when he is down, as Deputy Spring did yesterday. The importance of trying to find a solution to this problem is far more important than the kind of personal attack and vilification we heard here yesterday. The small farmers in my constituency who are paid for their cattle by Mr. Goodman on the same day that he buys them do not wish to see him go down. Many people throughout this country do not wish to see him go down. It is a pity that we should have had a speech from the Labour Party Leader which is quoted in one of the newspapers today——

What has this got to do with the Gulf?

——under the title "The Goodman organisation is finished." It has to do with the fact that the impasse in the Gulf is having a major impact on the Irish economy.

The Minister of State is more concerned with Larry Goodman than he is with——

Senior politicans in this country adding to that situation are not helpful.

The truth hurts.

If the truth hurts, several points made by the Deputy's Leader yesterday——

Name one.

I am asking Deputy Howlin to leave the House.

I think that is most unfair.

It is most unfair.

I am responding to the Minister.

You are not entitled to respond.

I am responding to the Minister of State. The Minister of State has vilified another Member of the House who has responsibility — you are being most unfair a Leas-Cheann Comhairle——

You can think what you like about it. I am asking you to leave the House. I have indicated that I would do it, and I am asking you now.

I will leave the House protesting at the total partiality of the Chair in this manner.

Deputy Howlin withdrew from the Chamber.

Perhaps the Minister of State has now made his point.

I listened carefully to what I heard yesterday. I want to finish by saying that I believe it did neither this House nor the country any good.

We are all anxious to have the points made in today's debate replied to on behalf of the Government. We have not had any response.

There will be five minutes for the four Deputies present. I call on Deputy Garland.

I will endeavour not to repeat points made by other speakers but rather to advance some additional points. At this stage the most desirable way forward would be for countries in the region, grouped together in the Arab League, to seek a regional solution. They understand the problem better than we do. In that way the rest of the world would not be seen to take a paternalistic attitude to the region. However, it must be said that the response of the Arab League has been very disappointing. Even before the United States sent their troops in, 14 only of the 21 Arab League members could condemn the invasion; nor did they send troops to Saudi Arabia until after the United States had done so. Even now they have sent a token force only. However, when we come to the United Nations action, certainly it has been very good up to the last few days. Nonetheless I believe United Nations approval of the use of force was a big mistake. The United States had already fired across the bows of tankers before seeking United Nations permission. They had already argued that the UN Charter so allowed. Their interpretation of the Charter was not shared by anybody else. We do not know how they will interpret this latest United Nations Resolution. The United States is a law unto itself. The United Nations are seen now to be backing United States aggression whereas the United Nations was set up to avoid war. History may well record that, on this occasion, they helped to cause it. In any case there is no need to use force to challenge large tankers leaving Iraq when these can easily be tracked by satellite or other methods.

While we must accept the United Nations decision we must vigorously campaign for them to take direct control over forces in the Gulf. If they do not do so then the actions of these forces will be governed by national rather than global interests. While the United States may have been invited into Saudi Arabia, that country is ruled by an absolute monarchy. Therefore it is safe to assume that that invitation was not necessarily supported by the people of Saudi Arabia. What is certain is that the United States intervention greatly complicates matters, appearing to possess more than mere defensive capabilities. There is a great danger that this could become an Arab versus the West confrontation, one that would play right into Saddam Hussein's hands.

Ireland has assisted in this United States build-up by allowing their aircraft to refuel at Shannon Airport. At present I understand that United States troops are running around Shannon.

While Saudi Arabia and the United States are perfectly free under the terms of the United Nations Charter to co-operate on defence, there is no obligation on Ireland or any other country to participate in, or to facilitate such a build-up, particularly as it appears to be more than just defensive. As a neutral state we should not have provided such military assistance to another alliance. Forces under a UN flag only should be facilitated in this way.

As for the United Kingdom, they have followed the United States line in every way. As regards the plight of foreign nationals trapped in Iraq and Kuwait, Saddam Hussein's abuse of these people has been abominable. They must all be allowed to leave immediately, regardless of nationality. Unforturnately, each individual's nationality may well have a crucial effect on their chances of getting out. For that reason it would be quite wrong to take any joint EC stance on this issue. To do so would be to relate the safety of the Irish to the actions of the British forces in the Gulf, for which we have no responsibility. It would be insane to do so.

The release of Brian Keenan has been secured. Probably that resulted from the emphasis on his Irishness, the fact that the Irish rather than the British Government dealt with his case. Why cannot we take the same approach vis-ávis the Irish in Iraq and Kuwait? The Taoiseach should explain this. Are we being prevented from so doing by European Political Co-operation? It is clear that the reason our people are being detained is that we are seen now as part for the Western bloc. Thanks to our participation in foreign policy co-operation within the EC we are just one of the western gang. Were we to take a high profile, independent and fairminded approach as a neutral state, there is little doubt that such would greatly improve the chances of our getting our people out.

Finally I would appeal to the Taoiseach, for God's sake, to proceed to Baghdad, do as President Waldheim of Austria did and get our people out.

I had intended calling a Fine Gael speakers for five minutes, then Deputy Gilmore and then Deputy Enright.

A Leas-Cheann Comhairle, I do not wish to argue with you but I think three Fine Gael speakers have contributed already and it is the turn of my party.

If I were asking Deputy Gilmore to wait for a long period I would understand, but it will be for five minutes only.

I thank Deputy Gilmore for his courtesy.

Never before in the short history of the State have our citizens, approximately 300 in number, been in such danger. Never before in the short history of this State have our citizens been treated in such a haphazard laissez-faire fashion. Never before in the history of this State has an off-shoot of a semi-State body — in fact a subsidiary of Aer Lingus holdings —PARC treated people in such a cavalier fashion, when the profit motive seems to be the norm rather than the safety and well being of people detained against their will whereas, in truth, they are hostages. This PARC organisation, has treated the families of detainees in a callous, uncaring, dismissive, cavalier fashion. When this crisis is over — and please God it will end soon — there will be and in-depth inquiry initiated by the Minister for Tourism and Transport, Deputy Seamus Brennan. I am now asking him to set up the necessary machinery for the initiation of such inquiry.

Members of detained families have come to me in tears because of PARC's attitude. It is unforgivable of PARC to say that most of the workers did not want to return to Ireland immediately. It is bizarre of PARC to say they knew more than the Department of Foreign Affairs, that the Department of Foreign Affairs rely on them solely for information regarding the Iraqi Army and the internal situation in Iraq. It was outlandish of PARC to say that, on the night prior to the invasion of Kuwait they knew there were large-scale troop movements but they were not sure whether they were hostile to Kuwait or to Saddam Hussein. It was also unforgivable of PARC to say there was no crisis, that there was no need for their staff — now detainees, or call them what you like — to be evacuated.

The first six days of this crisis were crucial to the well being and safety of our citizens. The PARC organisation, the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Minister must be responsible if any of our citizens do not return home safely. The role of the Department of Foreign Affairs in this débacle must also be seriously questioned. In the first six days of this crisis where was our ambassador? Was he in Iraq? No. Was he in Jordan? No. Was he in the Middle East? No. He was here on holidays in Dublin — an extraordinary turn of events. With the benefit of hindsight we can justificably ask: what sort of judgement did our ambassador exercise in this whole matter? Was he not aware of the imminent danger to our citizens in Kuwait or Iraq? Was he not aware that Saddam Hussein was threatening to invade Kuwait when the rest of the world was aware of this fact? Did he not know — given the mentality and track record of the Arabs — that our citizens would almost certainly be detained as hostages? Should he not have advised his Department — taking all the factors into account — of the dangers in which our citizens would find themselves? Yes, he should; he most certainly should. Indeed, the Minister should now act accordingly.

I will finish on the role of the Coalition Government in this matter. I should like to speak about the Taoiseach's special relationship——

Níl am agat. We asked for your co-operation.

I am astonished at the contribution made by the Minister of State. After quite a lengthy discussion on the very serious problem of the Middle East I had expected the last Government speaker to give some answers to the questions raised here by a number of Deputies during the course of the debate. They included questions of clarification for example, about Ireland's policy position, clarification about the position of Irish citizens in Iraq and Kuwait and updating us on the developments, for example, today on the question of the promise that women and children would be let go.

What is the latest position on that? I expected to be given an update on those positions at the end of the debate. Instead, I was anstonished that the last Government speaker made a sly attempt to reopen the debate which concluded at the Government's own wishes yesterday evening. The Minister is fond of sporting analogies and he reminds me of the player who insists on kicking the ball after the referee has blown the whistle. It is a very appropriate note on which to conclude the two days debate in the Dáil, which was recalled, not because of the crisis in the Gulf or because of the crisis experienced by families whose relatives are out there but because of a crisis in the Goodman company. This Government are more interested in defending Larry Goodman's honour than in giving answers to this House about the position of Irish citizens——

We are interested in fair play.

I am too, and in getting some answers to the questions that have been raised here during the course of the day which have not been given by the Government speaker. Instead we heard a defence of Mr. Goodman which could have been given at any stage during the course of the debate yesterday. Indeed the Minister for Industry and Commerce, replying to Second Stage, chose not to give specific answers to the questions raised here by Opposition Deputies yesterday.

There are a couple of points I should like to make in relation to the problem in the Middle East. There are three basic concerns that this House would have wished to have expressed in an all-party motion which was proposed by Deputy De Rossa during the course of the meetings of party leaders earlier this week. That motion would have clearly condemned the Iraqi invasion and annexation of Kuwait. It would have expressed the wish that the problem should be resolved by political and diplomatic means rather than by military force and it would have addressed the question of Irish Citizens and citizens of other states who are detained in Iraq and Kuwait at present. The House would have expressed in such a motion a general wish that the crisis in the Middle East would be resolved politically and diplomatically rather than by use of military force.

Unfortunately, that view is not shared elsewhere. Particularly in the United States, and possibly to a lesser extent in the United Kingdom there is a conditioning of public opinion that somehow a short sharp war can take place in the Middle East. It is best expressed in an editorial in the current issue of the Economist which says:

Yet it looks increasingly likely that an armed attack of some kind on Iraq will sooner or later have to come. It is hard to see how the essential goals of the effort to bring Mr. Hussein under control can be achieved without it.

What we are dealing with is not just the actions of President Hussein and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait but also a bullish approach, particularly in the United States and perhaps to a lesser extent in the United Kingdom, of people who want a war. It must be very clearly stated, in this House and in the expression of Ireland's foreign policy, that the last thing we want is a war. This notion that you can have a short sharp war in the Middle East which will sort out Saddam Hussein may well sound impressive to the veterans of foreign wars that President Bush addressed last week when he was sounding so bullish, particularly when it is so for away from the United States, but it is not something we want, and that must be expressed very clearly.

The United Nations Resolutions are important and we, as a sovereign Government, were obliged to comply with democratic decisions taken by the United Nations. At this stage it is important that the United Nations should very clearly make it obvious that they are endeavouring to see what action they can take in the future to prevent the sale by countries of guns, ammunition, bombs, gases, also planes and all types of war materials from one country to another for profit. In this House today we must roundly condemn that type of action. It would be a derelication of duty if we did not condemn the sale of these armaments which prop up very dangerous bullies. Some of our leading Western countries continue to sell armaments to help build up huge amounts of war materials to these countries and their sale to Iraq is the main reason for the dangerous situation with which the whole world is faced today; the sale to Iraq for profit was the motive. All right-thinking people condemn the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein. We are on the brink of a major war but I hope it can be avoided. Negotiations should not be ruled out by the Prime Minister of Britain and the British Government and by President Bush and the American Government. No matter how bad a situation is an effort should always be made to see if it can be resolved without spilling the blood of innocent women and children. Negotiations should certainly be actively considered.

We still have diplomatic relations with Iraq. Deputy Higgins, the Leas-Cheann Comhairle and I have been in this House for some time and we have seen pressure groups in the public gallery but never before have I seen the parents, brothers and sisters of people who are held as hostages coming into this House. The fears and worries of those people is something that we have never experienced before and certainly we all extend our sympathy to them. Along with our sympathy we must extend help. This country still has diplomatic relations with Iraq and the Minister for Foreign Affairs — who has done an excellent job in many instances—would be serving the country well if he went to Iraq to see if negotiations could help our people to escape.

The situation in the beef industry is very serious. I will put one point to the Minister. Córas Beostoic Feoil were getting £1.1 million some years ago to help to sell our beef but that sum has now been cut back to £500,000. The Ministers and the Government should have been able to see that there was a problem with the sale of beef, lamb and pigmeat. They expanded the role of CBF and at the same time cut their budget by over 50 per cent. A bad situation has been made worse and we became too dependent on one man. People were selling in Germany and England, and in the Middle Eastern countries but then the markets were cut by 50 per cent. It was a ludicrous decision which should be reversed.

We extend the goodwill of this House to those trapped in the Middle East and hope that they can be all brought home safe and sound in the immediate future.

The Dáil adjourned at 4 p.m. until 12 noon on Wednesday, 24 October 1990.

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