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THE EU’S COUNTER-TERRORISM chief has said it is impossible to completely prevent new Islamist attacks like those in Paris, and warned that Europe’s prisons have become a “massive incubator” for radicalisation.
The head of European police agency Europol, Rob Wainwright, meanwhile told British lawmakers on Tuesday that between 3,000 and 5,000 EU nationals have joined jihadist ranks.
“We’re dealing with a large body of mainly young men who have the potential to come back and have the potential or intent and capability to carry out attacks we have seen in Paris in the last week,” he said.
Wainwright also called for greater scrutiny of the use of social media by jihadist groups:
We have to have a closer, much more productive relationship between law enforcement and technology firms. One of the important evolutions we’re seeing right now in the current terrorist threat is the way the Internet is used, clearly much more aggressively, much more imaginatively by the networks.
Gilles de Kerchove told AFP that the Islamic State group and Al-Qaeda wanted to launch more attacks on the West like the Islamist assault on the French capital last week in which 17 people were killed over three says.
“We can’t prevent (such attacks) 100%,” de Kerchove said in an interview in Brussels, two days after meeting European, US and Canadian security ministers in Paris in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre and linked attacks.
It’s a real challenge but one can try to prevent them as much as possible without becoming a totalitarian society.
Balancing security needs and personal freedoms is a sensitive issue in Europe, parts of which have in the past experienced totalitarian Nazi and Communist rule.
Backing some of de Kerchove’s points, European Union President Donald Tusk called for a “coherent security policy” across the 28-country bloc, while protecting democratic freedoms.
The former Polish premier, speaking at the European parliament in Strasbourg, called for an EU-wide Passenger Name Record system, a controversial idea opposed by the parliament on the grounds it breaches privacy rules.
New footage of last week’s attack emerged today.
The proposed system would create a central database pooling details on people aboard flights, allowing faster exchange of information about foreign fighters returning to Europe, radicalised and well-trained from the war-zones of the Middle East.
The three French citizens responsible for the Paris attacks are believed to have had links with various jihadist groups in Yemen and Syria.
De Kerchove warned that the Al-Nusra Front, the Al-Qaeda branch in Syria, is also looking for “clean skins,” Europeans with valid passports and no record of radical activity, to mount attacks in Europe.
The EU anti-terror chief warned that it was better to try to rehabilitate jihadists, including those returning to Europe from Syria and Iraq, than to jail them.
Both Mohamed Merah, the Al-Qaeda militant who shot dead seven people in a series of 2012 attacks, and Mehdi Nemmouche, last year’s Brussels Jewish museum killer, were also turned to radical Islam in jail.
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Reducing the cost of living would be a better method of dealing with this.
@Cookie: Well said Cookie, what is the point in mandating businesses to pay more for labour which Govt siphon off a portion in PRSI, USC and PAYE? This causes produce and services to increase so businesses can cover these costs this allowing the government to siphon off more again in VAT.
It seems the government want a high cost and high tax economy in order to squander taxes on pet fluffy projects that are generally wasteful and of course keep their buddies on the gravy train.
@Cookie: You hit the nail on the head as usual. It’s ridiculous how high the cost of living is here. I lived in NY for a few years and found it cheaper to live there. Everywhere you turn here there is a bill.
@LaoisWeather: Maybe the Government wants to abolish the FIS (now called the WFP) and force employers to pay employees more instead. Either way, the consumer/taxpayer will end up footing the bill.
@Cookie: the zealots in the Green Party want to crucify us with carbon taxes
@Richard Russell:
They already are
Especially when trying to import a car with fairly average emissions.
We can’t all cycle to work Mr Ryan!
@Cookie:
Agree. We have the almost the highest energy charges in Europe, same with bin charges , and thanks to very creative tax loopholes pay little or tax in this country. A complete reform of our tax system is long overdue
I’d imagine employers will just cut the hours for staff..
And make the staff that are there work harder..
@Geraldine O’Riordan: they won’t.
@Derek Moran: we will
@Geraldine O’Riordan: Staff on minimum wage are already working as much as they can and doing the bare maximum as it is. Almost every minimum wage job is severely understaffed
The knock on effect is where most of the benefit would be lost. Surely the additional to businesses already struggling would be passed either directly onto the customer or staff would see a reduction in hours etc. A €2 or thereabouts increase per hour in wages for a small business across a 39 hour week is a substantial additional overhead. What about looking at the cost of living instead?
Ah yeah just let the self employed sort this out for you. No worries..Businesses only been open about 6 months in the last year but hey we got this
@Ann Mc Shane: You’ve not got anything – yet! All that’s happening is that The LPC is starting a review – you may well be an OAP before its recommendations are accepted by whatever government is elected in 2035!
@Ann Mc Shane: 6 months, ha, 14 weeks since march 23rd, 2020.
@Terry Larkin: my concern is their approach on helping employees live on their wages. Why should the employer and eventually the customer take the brunt. Its all wrong,
@Karl Mc Cauley: depends on your industry pal
The cost of living is just too expensive on our min wage the right job would be to tackle the cost of living but thats too much work so we will continue to tie ourselves up in further knots…
Maybe reduce the ridiculously high Tax first, increase the cutoff point and give people a chance to work hard and earn enough to be able to afford the high cost of living in this country.
@Fiddlestix: The 30k cutt off the fiddle with means absolutely nothing to the lowest earners, those who are struggling worse
Interesting to see how this will affect pubs. They’re obviously already going to be affected because of Covid, but if the minimum wage is increased by €2.10, that’ll surely add another 50c to €1 onto the price of a pint?
@Anthony Keenan: the price of everything will increase and then the living wage won’t be high enough anymore
@eoin carroll: of course it won’t, pure hyperbole
@Anthony Keenan: pubs can’t put up the price as it will decrease sales. It will come out of profits
@Anthony Keenan: If they are ever “allowed” reopen.
@eoin carroll: Yep, simple inflation
@eoin carroll: nows the time to take out a loan so.
How about cutting TDs wages. They get way overpaid for all the chaos they cause. Employ some monkeys instead. Oh I forgot we already have monkeys.
Abolish the so called temporary USC and reduce income tax. Help every working person who will then have more to put into our decimated economy. That’s if it ever opens up again!!
@Franny Ando: no don’t abolish it. Remove it from anyone under 50,000 or 85,000 as a couple and triple it for anyone on over 200,000 and 5 times for anyone on over 500,000.
@Karl Mc Cauley: Even better again.
Surely Dublin should have a higher minimum wage than the rest of the country
@mikeinclon: of course, in order to give it to dublin landlords and developers, makes perfect sense..
Family carers are paid €1.46 per hour, if paid anything at all. No bank holidays, no holiday leave, no lunch breaks, no pension, workers protection at all for up to 149.5 hours per week. All for a group that save the economy billions per year and picked up the slack for a failing health service during the pandemic. How about setting up a group to look at that.
Also worth noting min wage jobs are state subsidised jobs because people can’t live on the min wage.
Sorting out the cost of living in rip off Republic would be a better idea first. No point raising wages when we have things like utilities, insurance, groceries and even dining out or staying at a hotel in some parts even more than during the tiger times
@Tarraing Mo Liathróidí: At least people can choose how to spend that money. Or not.
@Fiona Fitzgerald: I agree having choice is great until you go to a concert or a match, then u have no choice cos the hotel sector become a cartel like in having all the same rip off prices
Everything else is going up in life but people’s wages.only working to barely survive in today’s world.capitalism has the world destroyed
@reginald: In Ireland you only work to exist. You don’t work to live.
@David Corrigan:
Work to shop in lidls as can’t afford anything better
@reginald: who says it’s capitalism’s fault? Nearly a quarter of the price of everything you buy goes to the govt. Also, bear in mind that our overlords in all the world’s central banks actually WANT prices to go up by 2% per year. It’s their stated policy.
And rents will soar.
@Darren Byrne:
Rents double what they were 20 years ago.
Salaries haven’t doubled!
@Darren Byrne: Thats been happening for years now and is leading to this
Good, about time.
Pay more to pay more!
Increase the minimum wage great idea but sadly this government and most previous governments have perfected stealth taxes etc so you are always struggling
At the same time please examine why OAPs are still awaiting full restoration of 2008 entitlements??????
@Sean Callan: The question should be, why are the OAP’s not on the minimum wage
How exactly would a government go about reducing the cost of living? A small Increase in wages for people who do the most important often labour intensive work is mooted and there materializes on here an army of I’m allright Jack’s suggesting the sky would fall in.
@Jointheclubtoo: shure most SME’s are loaded and could afford €15 an hour for menial labour jobs if only they were pushed. They would never pass this increase on to the consumer… not at all, at all.
Look up costs, overheads and prices and come back to us.
@Jointheclubtoo: get rid of the euro as currency. Make it illegal for government to deficit spend. Return to gold standard. Problem solved albeit after the mother and father of recessions.
Appears to be a mandate to spend as much as possible as quick as possible.
What will your government trade for debt forgiveness.
We need a rent freeze and tax relief for rental payments, not increased costs to small businesses.
Still don’t get it. Minimum wage jobs were never seen as a main wage. They were always additional income to a main salary.
@Craic_a_tower: They are a main wage to many though
@Mike: that’s not the fault of the employer, though, is it? So why should the employer be forced to subsidize what used to be entry level jobs?
@Squarepeg01: why should the tax payer subsidise employees who aren’t paid enough to live.. If you can’t pay a living wage your business is not viable
Anyone running a small business in this country knows it’s the straw that broke camels back half of s me will never open again when pandemic is over
Future rising prices will be partly blamed on this move. The Gov’t could avoid having to do this if their heart was set on correcting our failed housing policy. If they tackled that and made it fairer then it would be an improvement across the board.
@Paul Divers: failed housing policy? How about failed monetary system!
People wondering why the cost of living keeps on going up but have no idea about how our monetary system works. Makes sense.
I smell an election
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