Mr. David Turner:

Regarding our history, Church in Chains has existed since the days of the Soviet Union. It was the persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union that led to our formation, based on our concern for those imprisoned in that country. We have been around for quite a number of years. We were at that stage, and we continue to be, a small, independent Irish charity. We consider it very important that we are Irish. We seek to be an Irish voice for persecuted Christians.

The Cathaoirleach asked about our previous interactions with previous iterations of this committee. We had a meeting back in 2015 with the then committee. As I recall, there was a follow-up in 2015 in that the committee invited the ambassadors of the countries mentioned to attend a further meeting. There is precedent for that. In 2018, due to the upsurge in violence against Christians in India and following the issuing of a report we commissioned via our India partner, we contacted the committee, which subsequently met specifically to discuss that issue. Those are the two previous interactions we have had with the committee.

On our relations with the Department, we are members of its human rights committee and have been for more than a decade, since we identified that there was nobody on the committee who was speaking about the persecution of Christians. We are very pleased to be part of that committee. The Cathaoirleach asked whether we feel the Department could do more. Specifically in regard to the UN, we are not a large organisation and do not do advocacy as an organisation at the UN. However, we have been active in submitting to the Department suggested questions it might put to countries under the universal periodic review process. To be frank, we have perhaps been a little disappointed that the Department has not taken more of our questions on board and put them to the relevant countries. We recognise that each country in the universal periodic review process has an opportunity to raise just two issues. We acknowledge that limitation. Nevertheless, we have at times felt the work we have done in putting together questions on what we saw as very important matters in the relevant countries has fallen on deaf ears.

The Cathaoirleach asked about our dealings with the EU. Again, we do not have an individual officer dealing with the EU. We work in informal relationship with other similar organisations. We are not part of an umbrella group as such but we have good relations with other religious liberty organisations, such as Christian Solidarity Worldwide, which does have UN accreditation and does advocacy at the EU level.

In regard to individual countries and where we get information from, we work with partners in each of those countries, supported by my colleagues here today, who have personal experience of what is going on in their country. This is a valuable safeguard, in that sometimes a report comes in on a website and it is very important to be able to verify the contents of that report. Church in Chains always seeks to publish accurate and non-sensationalist reports on its website. We seek to report the facts and encourage prayer and action.

I hope I have dealt with most of the issues the Cathaoirleach raised. If I have left one or two points unaddressed, I ask him to follow up on them.