Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2014

I am pleased to support this very important legislation. As the Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald, said in her opening remarks, we already have a body of anti-terrorist legislation but the last major legislation was almost ten years ago and, since then, the geopolitical landscape has changed utterly. We have seen the inexorable growth of terrorism striking right into the heart of Europe, most recently in Paris, and also in Yemen, Tunisia and Nigeria.

By definition, we know nowhere is safe because the essence of terrorism is that the terrorists instil fear of attack, even if no attack happens. Their way of terrorising is to instil fear and use threat, stealth and intimidation. Unfortunately, as we now know, the jihadists are increasingly successful in attracting young recruits, as well as money, to their cause. They use social media and all of their psychological skills to persuade not just vulnerable young people, but also well-adjusted, educated young people, to abandon everything they know and everybody they love to travel thousands of miles in pursuit of what is an alleged religious ideal, which is incomprehensible to all of the rest of us, and, I might say, also incomprehensible to the vast majority of Muslims.

In my own constituency, in Clonskeagh, we have the largest mosque and Muslim school in the country, so we have a very large Muslim population. I have to say that these are extremely law-abiding citizens. I have sympathy with them because many must feel they are regarded as, in some way, tainted by association with this terrorism, in much the way that Irish people felt when they lived in Britain during the IRA attacks in the 1980s and 1990s. There is that fear that, simply because one is of the same religion or origin, one is in some way tainted by terrorism.

Gardaí here in Ireland, through their own efforts and their engagement with Interpol and Europol, have excellent intelligence. Despite what some media reports seem to suggest, there are no more than a couple of dozen individuals here who gardaí feel it is prudent to keep an eye on. Therefore, I think we can be fairly confident that Ireland is not, in fact, a hotbed of terrorist activity. I know also that, in addition to their intelligence, gardaí are also proactive in prevention work and in engaging with the Muslim community to ensure that the young Muslim population is not subject to recruitment or any kind of grooming on social media or otherwise.

Vigilance is necessary for all of us, however, particularly so with the ever-increasing movement of great numbers of people to Europe from Africa and the Middle East. Those in this wave of immigrants are, for the most part, trying to escape war and want in either sub-Saharan Africa or the Middle East, in particular Syria and Iraq. However, as part of its objective of instilling fear, Islamic State has threatened in the most cynical way to infiltrate Europe by posing as hapless migrants.

It may well be, and I hope and pray it is, that Ireland is never subject to a terrorist attack but that does not in any way lessen the need for this legislation. I say so for a number of reasons. The new protocol to the European Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism covers this whole area of procuring terrorists. It is essential for us to sign this protocol. Once the legislation is in place, it opens the way for us to ratify the convention and it is absolutely timely that we do that, given the rapidly changing landscape.

We owe it to the international community to show determined solidarity with it, and particularly with those who, unlike Ireland, have been attacked and are probably still vulnerable to further attacks in the future. By ratifying the European Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism, we and all of the countries that ratify it send a strong signal that, no matter where these attacks take place, there will be no safe haven anywhere, either here or in any of the ratifying countries, for those perpetrating this kind of attack. This will be the case no matter where they attack, be it in Nigeria, where young girls were taken from school and subjected to God knows what fate, because they have never been found; in Tunisia, where utterly blameless tourists were shot dead; or in Paris, where journalists suffered a similar fate. In no case is it possible for us to identify any rationale behind these attacks, other than to try to strike terror into the civilised world. By their actions, they show their utter disregard not just for the rule of law or for life or culture, but for all of the human rights which we aspire to and which distinguish civilised man from what is the very worst in human nature.

Even in parts of Syria where Islamic State has taken control, its rule is not for the betterment of the people under it. In fact, it still terrorises the population it rules. In many cases, women in particular have not left their houses for months on end for fear of their lives or of enslavement. People have not been able to send children to school for three years. Life expectancy under Islamic State has fallen by 30%, from 79 years of age, which is typical of a western European country, down to 55 years of age in a mere four years. Unfortunately, most of that drop in life expectancy is due to the high mortality rate among youth and children, as medicines, vaccines and medical services have all but disappeared under Islamic State. In a mere four years, this is what terrorism can do to a country, transform it from being, if not a democratic country, then at least a peaceful and educated one, to the unspeakable conditions that now pertain for citizens today. It is a lesson to all of us that if this can happen in Syria, it can literally happen anywhere.

Only yesterday I read of girls and women who were rescued by the new Nigerian Government from terrorists in Nigeria. Of the 324 who were rescued, 314 had been raped and were pregnant, many of them just young girls of 12 and 13 years of age. This shows the utter ruthless brutality of this regime. Therefore, I fully support this legislation as a step towards ratifying the European Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism and dealing specifically with the growing evidence of the widespread practice of procuring young male recruits and, indeed, female recruits, training them and financing them, and, if they do not die for their cause in some faraway land, returning them as fully-fledged jihadis to their home country to spread further terrorism.

In conclusion, I want to say how much I support this legislation. I know it is largely ignored by the media, and we are dealing with it on a quiet Thursday afternoon, but I suspect it is probably one of the most important Bills we will put through this term.