If the Government was serious on Smith issue, it would have sent in forces

IN HER most recent interview with RTÉ, Lisa Smith, the former Air Corps flight steward who left Ireland to voluntarily become a part of Isil, nails the core of this distressing matter.

There has been so much conjecture, confusion and indeed lack of leadership on this matter by the State, that the whole issue has been confused and conflated in all sorts of crazy ways.

The essence of this matter is Smith’s own admittance that she became part of Isil, a rogue regime that was listed and condemned as a terrorist entity by both the United Nations and the European Union.

In her admittance, it is clear that she either does not understand or simply does not want to acknowledge that Islamic State (Isil) was not a state like any other and is guilty of having carried out crimes against humanity on a scale similar to the genocides perpetrated in Rwanda or Cambodia.

Most reasoned people would find it impossible to believe Smith is being truthful when she asks us to consider that she had no clue in knowing what Isil stood for when she embarked on a lengthy and difficult journey to become part of this regime.

For some time now in this

country we have become consumed as to whether this former member of the Defence Forces was directly involved in the war effort on behalf of Isil. References have been made to Isil documents found that listed her as training young women to handle weapons.

In a past interview with the BBC, Smith herself alluded to statements made by other women at the Al-Hawl refugee camp, where she is being held, that she had instructed them in use of firearms.

But all these things are irrelevant, because if our Government was serious about treating this as an issue of national security, a combined team of appropriate Defence Force and Garda personnel could have been deployed to the Al-Hawl camp to gather intelligence and evidence on the matters mentioned above.

Using the excuse that the area is in a zone of conflict, and that it was too dangerous to send diplomats and therefore no further effort at either information gathering or attempting to remove Smith and her child to a location where she could have been repatriated to Ireland, rings a little hollow.

Exactly 10 years ago,

I found myself being seconded from the UN mission in Darfur to work with an Irish team assembled from members of the Defence Forces, the Garda and the Department of Foreign Affairs to resolve the kidnapping of an Irish citizen.