The sincerity of our response to the atrocities in the US last week could be judged by what we did in the future about terrorism here, Mr Feargal Quinn told the Seanad yesterday.
If we believed that those horrifying events represented an attack on civilisation itself then we must also believe that any terrorist act made that very same threat even if it happened on our doorstep, he said.
"I suggested a moment ago that terrorism is always wrong, but is that really our attitude here in Ireland?
"Is that the attitude that governs how we have reacted and coped with the historical events over the last 30 years in this country or, have we, for whatever reason, and by acts of omission as much as by acts of commission, allowed to build up in this country an atmosphere of tolerance towards terrorism?"
Mr Quinn was contributing in a special debate on the attacks in the US.
He said there were many in the Unionist community in Northern Ireland who believe that the Republic was a safe haven State in exactly the same way as Afghanistan had been for bin Laden and his organisation.
Dr Maurice Hayes (Ind) said he had been very moved by the memorial service in Dublin's Pro Cathedral last week. But he thought it was a pity that no one had had the sensitivity to include a Muslim cleric or a Rabbi.
The symbolism of that would have been enormous. It would also have sent a signal of reassurance to the Muslim community in this country that we valued them as fellow citizens.
Dr Hayes said he thought that one of the things that had been learned in the North was the danger of sowing dragons' teeth by policies such as shoot-to-kill.
The great problem for democracies was how to defend democracy, as we all must, from the threats which now confronted us, without sacrificing our democratic values.
The best thing we could do, with the Irish presidency of the UN Security Council coming up, was to help America to grieve and to help its authorities in their legitimate search for justice.
Justice meant finding the guilty and bringing them to account. He hoped this was the way this would go forward, but he feared there was a real danger of dragons' teeth being sown if it was done otherwise.
Dr Maurice Manning, Fine Gael leader in the House, said that ever since the attacks, people in this country had shown grief on a scale never seen before. "Some events are so intrinsically evil that no defence is possible. This is one such."
Those responsible must be brought to justice - not mob law, not lynch law, but justice. There must be no hiding place or no sanctuary for them.
But neither must there be needless or pointless retaliation which left other innocent people dead or maimed.