Foreign Conflicts

Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 16 January 2013

Wednesday, 16 January 2013

Questions (72)

Bernard Durkan

Question:

72. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the extent to which efforts are being made to set up permanent structures to engage with all the protagonists in the Middle East conflict with particular reference to the need to ensure access to outside independent agencies to deal with on-going issues and avert new confrontations or the potential for such confrontation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1939/13]

Written answers

Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade

While suggestions for an independent secretariat or permanent structure to support efforts to resolve the Middle East conflict have occasionally been made in the Oireachtas, I have to say that this idea has not been raised by the parties directly affected when I have met them either in the region or elsewhere. I do not think that we are lacking fora where the parties can express their grievances; rather, the opposite is the case. There are already permanent representatives and staffs operating in the field on behalf of the EU, the US, the UN and the Quartet. The problem is not, perhaps, one of a lack of structures but rather of a lack of political will to use what is already there.