merrion street

Last Friday on the streets of Paris we saw mass murder on a frightening scale.

We saw multiple acts of cruelty intended to denigrate those killed and to challenge the way of life of the society in which they lived.
Today, I join with others in expressing solidarity with the families and friends of the victims, with the people of Paris and the people of France.
Since Friday we have heard something of the lives of those who were killed and the experience of those who lived through the events of that awful night.
We have heard the stories of those young people who went out to enjoy a concert and never came home.
We have heard the stories of those who went out to enjoy an evening with a loved one only to say goodbye forever on the blood-spattered floor of the Bataclan.
We have heard stories of courage, of desperation, of kindness and of fear.
After the horror and the shock, we ask ourselves... why?
Why would men look to treat their fellow men and women with such callous cruelty?
Maybe they are psychopaths; maybe they are common criminals.
In many ways it would be easier for us to explain and to react if that were true.
But whatever is true of the individuals who planned and carried out the attack on Paris, it is clear that this was more than the individual acts of deranged people.
This was a political act.
A gesture of hatred.
A challenge.
An act carried out by a group – Daesh – who see themselves as our enemy and want to destroy what we believe in.
Theirs is a philosophy of hatred and intolerance.
They enforce it with cruelty and use acts of barbarity to attract others to their cause.
This is an organisation which regards all those who disagree with them as apostates and treats them as subhuman.
This is an organisation which enslaved, raped and denigrated Yazidi women who were unfortunate enough to live in the wrong place.
This is an organisation which routinely forces children to commit murder; which has thrown gay men off the top of high buildings and encouraged their supporters to thrash their bodies in the streets below.
This is an organisation which destroyed the architectural heritage of Palmyra and beheaded the elderly curator in the public square.
And now they have brought their message of hatred to our European streets.
They chose Paris, a city which is synonymous with culture, with debate, with openness, with joie de vivre.
They chose Paris, which has for centuries been part of Europe’s gateway to the world.
A city of diversity, a city that has opened its doors to millions of people from around the world in recent decades.
In their fight with us, Daesh have targeted the home of the Revolution, the home of the Enlightenment; a city and a country which throughout its turbulent history has looked to give meaning to its eternal values – liberté, égalité, fraternité.
Like many others, the Irish people have looked to France for many years as they have struggled to define what it really means to be a republic.
We know that behind the idealism of the words, there is a great deal of room for difference and debate.
We know that liberty is not absolute; that freedom brings with it responsibility.
We know that equality is a goal that cannot be achieved without sacrifice.
We know that fraternity entails embracing people who believe in values other than our own.
And therein lies the greatest challenge of all.
Our belief in diversity obliges us to embrace those who do not want to be embraced.
Our belief in freedom of speech obliges us to tolerate much that we regard as offensive.
At what point do we suspend our belief in tolerance and decide that some beliefs, some people are simply intolerable?
This is the essence of the challenge which the people and government of France face in these coming months and years.
President Hollande said yesterday that we cannot have liberty without security.
And of course, he is right.
If we are not safe in the streets, then we cannot enjoy the lifestyle of a diverse liberal republic.
But in our efforts to defeat those who attack us, we risk the very republican values which we are looking to defend.
In declaring a state of emergency, we are suspending some of the rights that we hold dear.
In curtailing the rights of those who offend, we also infringe the rights of many who have not offended.
The republican state must defend itself but it risks diminishing itself in the process.
In Ireland we know the risks.
We know that terrorism cannot be allowed to win but we also know that some of the measures aimed at defeating terrorism run the risk of recruiting others to its cause.
We know there is a balance to be struck and we should be forever conscious of the consequences of the decisions we take.
Our friends in France will do what they can to defeat the military threat of Daesh.
After the events of Friday, the French people are entitled to expect nothing less.
But there are limits to what can be achieved through military action.
Daesh will be defeated militarily some day - and the sooner the better.
But there is another battle - a battle which must be won if the threat of extremism is to be defeated.
The battle for the allegiance of our own citizens; the battle to defeat extremism – not in the deserts of the Middle East, but in the banlieues of Paris, the backstreets of Brussels and in the Muslim communities of most of our major cities.
This battle can only be truly won by defining our western society as one that is truly republican.
One which imposes rights and responsibility in a way which is blind as to colour, religion and ethnicity.
We must be clear that the secular republic is not the enemy of Islam – or of any religion.
But equally we must make it clear that we will not tolerate fascist beliefs just because those who espouse them seek to excuse their hatred for others by invoking religion and distorting its teachings.
The ties between Ireland and France are profound.
Over the centuries we looked to France for inspiration and support.
More recently, contact between our peoples has become routine.
Irish people in their tens of thousands have made their home in France and many French people come here, sometimes for a few weeks or a few months; sometimes for a lot longer.
We enjoy the same rights, the same lifestyle.
We share the same values.
We know that the attacks on Paris are a threat to those values, which we share with our French friends and neighbours.
We will stand with them as they look to deal with that threat.
We will stand with them in mourning.
We will stand with them as they look to fight back.
Sometimes offering full-blooded support; sometimes advising caution as good friends should.
But always on the same side.
ENDS