David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Two of the questions I proposed to raise have been addressed. On Palestine, the issue of children must also be included. I attended a briefing yesterday on the plight of children in Palestine, the disproportionate risk they face and the Euro-Mediterranean agreement.

I salute Amnesty International and note the extremely important work it has been doing, particularly since this committee was renamed the Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade. I would have liked human rights to have been included in the title. The pressure exerted by organisations such as Amnesty International is terribly important because one of the points to emerge from yesterday's meeting was that attention to human rights in Palestine and other places around the world has been blown off the agenda by the economic difficulties being experienced in many European countries.

The difficulty for people such as me - perhaps the witnesses will have some advice for me in this regard - is that the Euro-Mediterranean agreement, for example, includes a human rights protocol that has never been monitored or assessed. There is internationally recognised documented evidence of gross human rights abuse by the Israeli authorities and army against the people of Palestine, yet the human rights protocol has not been assessed or monitored. Does Mr. O'Gorman agree that this brings the whole concept of human rights into disrepute diplomatically? A protocol is stuck into an agreement which then allows people to believe all is wonderful and everyone's human rights have been sorted out, only to find that human rights violations are taking place right under one's nose. What can the committee do about this? I and some of my colleagues have tabled resolutions time and again but they disappear into thin air.

Rendition flights were known about five or six years ago and information about them was placed on record by those observing flight traffic at Shannon Airport and a number of Members of the Oireachtas. One of the strengths of our action on this matter was its all-party nature. The then Leader of the Seanad, Ms Mary O'Rourke, accepted the position and a committee was established to inquire into the matter at my suggestion. This committee was sabotaged, however, as a result of pressure from councillors in Shannon who saw an economic angle to the issue. We tracked and put on record evidence of an unbroken cycle of rendition, providing information on flight paths and so forth. What does one do in such circumstances? I wrote to the Council of Europe committee headed by Mr. Dick Marty warning it of what our Minister for Foreign Affairs would say and advising it not to believe him. The Minister had full knowledge of the matter but was concealing that fact.

With regard to the general issue of human rights, it has been suggested that one useful function of the Irish Human Rights Commission, formerly headed by Maurice Manning, was that it should proof all Government legislation for its human rights impact. Perhaps Amnesty International could play a role in proofing some of the European directives and so forth for human rights, particularly those related to matters such as policing and asylum. What is the delegation's view on that matter? Given our extremely poor record on asylum issues, perhaps a proofing of these issues for human rights abuses, even domestically, would be useful. Such abuses have been enshrined in our legislation in the past and may very well happen again because this Government is showing precisely the same traits as the previous Government. I am not sure whether we are ruled by Fine Fáil or Fianna Gael.

On the individuals who are under threat, given that few other organisations take up the issue of threats to gay citizens, I ask the witnesses to elaborate on this issue. There is a specific case in Cameroon but gay people are under threat all over Africa in the most horrendous way. Despite this, we are doing trade with these countries and giving them financial support for civil society and so forth. These cases are horrifying and as a church-going member of the Church of Ireland, I find it shocking that all the Christian churches seem to support this kind of ignorant brutality.

I seek some advice. Reference was made to a number of protocols to which Ireland and the European Union should sign up and fully recognise. I ask Amnesty International to provide all Members of both Houses with a document, setting out in bullet points all the conventions or protocols that we have not signed or to which we have not adhered. There are so many of these agreements that we make assumptions.

There are stages, such as, signing, ratification and then there is something else. It is like one's First Holy Communions and one's this, that and the others. If the witnesses could give us a list of those things I am sure all colleagues, across the different parties, would be prepared to push for them, particularly at this time. If that is possible, as an information aid, I would certainly welcome that and, perhaps, my colleagues would as well.