Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Mr. Staunton may have covered some of the points I will raise and, if so, he can tell me and I will check the record later. Through my membership of this committee and as head of the Irish section of AWEPA, I have had a number of dealings with our embassies in African countries, including Sierra Leone, Lesotho, Ghana and Mozambique, and I acknowledge and compliment the Irish embassy staff in each of those countries. I am not saying anything about the other countries but they are the four about which I know and I have seen at first-hand the work they do. Certainly in the case of Mozambique, several members of the staff in the embassy speak Portuguese which is a real advantage to them.

I was part of the delegation which has just come back from Iran. All those we met pointed out how disappointed they were that the Irish embassy closed. It would make things much easier in terms of trade and human rights, which we discussed, if the embassy was reopened as soon as possible.

The first question is a general one about Mr. Staunton's time working abroad. How does he think Ireland is seen as an international actor? I was interested in what he said about tax havens. We have been seen as a tax haven and I do not think we are doing enough on the tax justice issue or have a strong enough voice for countries, in particular in Africa which are at the mercy of multinational companies which, for a variety of reasons, are not working the terms of agreements as they should to the benefit of those countries. Sometimes it is due to lack of capacity but other times it is because of corruption. We could be a stronger voice when it comes to companies paying their corporate tax.

On the debt issue, we have seen very immoral deals between African countries, the IMF and the World Bank, which have decimated native industries in some of those countries and have left them in really precarious positions. Are we a strong enough voice in that regard?

Yesterday, I asked Mr. Dorr if human rights and trade are compatible. Do we ignore human rights when we look at trade agreements? Should there not be an obligation on us, when we are negotiating trade agreements that, at the very least, workers' rights are included, whether decent working conditions or a decent wage? They should be part of it. I know it is something which the President, Michael D. Higgins, was very strong on when he was a member of this committee. One hears the argument that if we are to trade, we have to forget about human rights. I do not think we can but I would be interested to hear Mr. Staunton's opinion on that.

We discussed the UN yesterday and I think the general conclusion was that it is the best we have got but its ineffectiveness is seen more and more, certainly on the political side. We saw what happened in Bosnia and we said it would never happen again but it happened in Rwanda and again we said it would never happen again. Look at what is happening in Syria now. Where are the voices on that? Ireland is on the UN Human Rights Council but can we do more? I would be interested to hear Mr. Staunton's response.