TANAISTE Simon Coveney has said the Government will try to find a way for jihadi bride Lisa Smith to return to Ireland.
Coveney said the Government had a “duty of care” to Smith and her young daughter – but said that the logistics of any potential return were “very complex”.
The ex-Irish Army trooper has said she wants to return to Ireland and doesn’t think she will be prosecuted for moving to Syria.
The 37-year-old told CNN: “I want to go home.
“I know they’d strip me of my passport and stuff and I wouldn’t travel and I’d be watched kind of, but prisons? I don’t know. I’m already in prison.”
The Foreign Affairs Minister said the Government is in touch with her family and said they consider it “a consular case”.
He said: “The Government’s position is that we consider her case a consular case. Like all consular cases, we want to look after Irish people and bring them home if they want to come home.
“There is a meeting between my Department, the Department of Defence and the Department of Justice to co-ordinate a Government response in relation to how we assist her.
“Of course, there is heightened concern because there is a two year old girl involved in this as well.”
Coveney said some complications include the fact that Smith is in a camp in what is effectively a war zone.
He added: “This is a particularly unusual case as it involves a young child, and a mother, both of them Irish citizens in a warzone, in a camp that was linked to some partners and children of ISIS fighters, controlled largely by Kurds, and so it is more complicated than most consular cases would be, to put it mildly, but we do have a responsibility here as a State.”
BAD BREAK-UP
Smith left her home in Dundalk, Co Louth, and first moved to Tunisia before making the journey to Syria in 2015, where she married an Islamic State sympathiser who later died fighting.
Jihadi bride Smith spent a decade serving as a soldier in the Irish Army and then the Air Corps. She had previously even served former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern on the Government jet.
But a difficult split-up nine years ago caused Smith to fall into a deep depression.
Having previously been described by pals as a “party girl” who loved a few drinks, she then decided to devote her life to Islam.
It was after this she ended up marrying an IS sympathiser in Syria.
MOST READ IN NEWS
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said the woman and her child can return home to Ireland.
Varadkar says he does not believe removing Smith’s citizenship is “the right thing to do”, but stressed she would face an investigation and will not be allowed to endanger anyone when she does come back from Syria.
Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan has told told how Smith is “keen to come home”, adding: “Every effort will be made on the part of the Irish authorities to ensure she does get home.”