EDITORIAL: Everybody needs to be vigilant about threat

MINISTER for Defence Simon Coveney seems quite confident that Ireland does not face the same level of risk of an ISIS-inspired terrorist attack like that which occurred in Paris last Friday night with devastating consequences, leaving more than 129 innocent people dead and almost 200 more seriously injured. After a meeting of the National Security Committee last weekend to assess the risk to Ireland in the wake of the attacks, the Minister told RTÉ that such an attack in Ireland is ‘very unlikely.’

France and other continental countries are more prone to these attacks, being on the same landmass that the terrorists tend to emanate from, with the threat to Britain and Ireland, both islands, considered less likely. But, none of us should be so smug as to discount the possibility and constant vigilance is needed by everyone as terrorists can strike anywhere and at any time, as we saw in Paris, where the memory of the 21 Charlie Hebdo killings earlier this year was still raw.

That was a terrible atrocity which led to a big show of unity as European political leaders marched together in Paris in solidarity with the people to send a defiant message to terrorists, but this was just ignored and the January attack was totally dwarfed in scale by the death and injury toll of last weekend’s lethal executions of civilians who were out enjoying themselves in what ISIS described as ‘the capital of abomination and perversion.’

As Europe gets another taste of it, there is an even greater need also to look after the refugees fleeing from the intolerance and tyranny of ISIS in the Middle East.