Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for arriving late. I did not get to hear what the delegates had to say, but I have read some of the hand-written submissions which we received from them. They paint an horrific picture of what is happening in Colombia. With reference to the Mothers of Soacha, what is the timeline of the offences? It is stated that in one particular place some of the offences occurred right up to the terms of office of the current regime and President.

I note what the delegates said about applying the issue of human rights to the trade agreement. We need to test if that is what is going to apply. There has been an issue with Irish aid. There are many poor people in Colombia as there are in places in which we provide aid. In attaching conditions to the agreement which may not be met, people, in Africa for instance, may end up being deprived of support.

I would have a little bit of a question mark on that. I suggest we should send the transcript of this debate to the Colombian ambassador and not just ask him for his observations; we should have a meeting with him at which we would go through the specific points that have been raised. From these meetings, rather than just a generality of complaint, we should try to get something specific and solid to home in on and pursue.

There were two things that I picked up on in one of the submissions. There is a need for an independent commission to investigate the state assassinations of trade unionists, politicians, students and so forth. I presume some of this is being done under the cover of the conflict that is taking place. I also presume some of it is being done as a reaction to some of the atrocities the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, was also committing. It is probably very difficult to separate those two sometimes. This is why I like the concept of an independent commission that would be established to bring those who perpetrated crimes to justice. We still cannot and have not succeeded in bringing, for example, people in the British political system and in the British military and the rest of the political establishment to boot over the atrocities they committed here, like the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, in which they had a very significant role to play. I think those are travesties and I support what the delegates are trying to do on that.

There is another thing specifically worthwhile pursuing. In the free-trade agreement, there are no clauses protecting the health and safety of workers. I think that would be a very reasonable thing to include in the trade agreement. I think it is one to which most people would subscribe. I note from a paper we got from the Oireachtas that the agreement sets out both human rights and sustainable development obligations. I am not specifically clued in to the actual trade agreement, but I am wondering if the delegates might like to comment on that.