I join my colleagues in extending sympathy to the people of Norway on their recent tragedy. It highlights the issues of the arms trade and access to arms. The seriousness of these issues were never brought home to me more than three years ago when I visited the area of Chad bordering Sudan, where over 10,000 people under 18 carried machine guns. Over a period of 18 months, the aid agencies lost over 85 four-wheel drive vehicles because they were stopped by young people carrying machine guns and had to hand over the keys. Machine guns are bolted to stands on the floors of the jeeps, which are then used as armed personnel carriers. In Chad over 500,000 people were in refugee camps and sites for internally displaced persons because of the number of bandits carrying machine guns and the lack of law and order, and because of arms and ammunition being so freely available.
In Somalia, over 4 million people have serious difficulty obtaining access to food.
My question concerns protection for aid agencies working in the sites for internally displaced persons and refugee camps. The Irish Army provided protection when sent to Chad as part of an EU peacekeeping force. In Somalia, many aid agencies cannot provide food because they do not have protection.
We should ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade to take the action necessary to ensure the United Nations provides the necessary protection to the organisations trying to provide food aid. I ask that this matter be taken up with the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and that he, in turn, take it up with the United Nations at a very early date.
