Eric Byrne (Dublin South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the ambassador. I hope she has a pleasant experience in Ireland. She will have plenty of her fellow nationals to engage with given that about 40,000 Nigerians live in Ireland, an issue to which I will return. I congratulate her on her appointment. Having read her profile, I recognise she is no mean person to deal with. As she has been a parliamentarian, she will know a lot about how we are going to engage. After the warm welcome, I will get down to the nitty-gritty.

We received presentations from a number of the NGOs, including Médecins Sans Frontières, on the Ebola issue. Some of us visited Sierra Leone prior to the Ebola outbreak. We understand how weak the state apparatus, relating to hospitals, nurses, doctors and medical facilities, in Sierra Leone was, as it was a post-war country. Leaving that aside, given that the virus as identified in Nigeria was the very same virus that was spreading in Sierra Leone, I was very dismissive of the statement at the time and my concern was how it would travel within Nigeria. I congratulate Nigeria on having achieved the World Health Organization status of being free of the Ebola virus.

The reason I was sceptical of the figures coming from Nigeria was that we had the scenario of these 300 girls and boys, and everybody being slaughtered in and around an area, with no apparent sign of these children being rescued. The logic of that was that if the Nigerian establishment - military, police and security forces - cannot locate all these people and there is such a war-driven climate in northern Nigeria, how could it possibly control the Ebola virus if it had broken out in that region? I congratulate Nigeria; it did a wonderful job on the Ebola virus issue.

I have considerable interaction with the new communities - the new arrivals to our country. We are very happy to have given Irish citizenship to 60,000 non-Irish from 120 countries. There are 40,000 Nigerians in Ireland, many of whom came initially as "asylum seekers". As a representative of the Nigerian Government, does the ambassador see any reason that any Nigerian man, woman or child should seek asylum from Nigeria in Ireland today? Many of the 40,000 Nigerians here are becoming very respected and welcomed into the Irish citizenship role. As there are 406 Irish people in Nigeria, the ambassador can see the comparison.

I argued with the ambassador's predecessor on this point. Forty years ago I was in Kano near the border with Niger and in Maiduguri near Cameroon. I know the area, but not very well given that it was so long ago. Does the ambassador see any blame being attached to successive Nigerian governments? With an income of $50 billion per annum in oil revenue, it would be alleged that the distribution of this wealth has been unequal and that the north of Nigeria has been sadly neglected. The huge rates of unemployment among young people are leading to the attraction of Boko Haram or whatever to escape into a different lifestyle.

Nigeria is very successful. We spoke recently at the Africa forum so we are enthusiastic about doing business with the foremost country in Africa at this stage with 5.5% annual growth, which is phenomenal. There are arguments that corruption in Nigeria is militating against successful business deals being done. I draw attention to recent newspaper reports of corrupt practices in the oil company, Afren plc.

Is the ambassador in a position provide assurances that steps have been taken to address these issues of corruption? The fact that expatriates travelling to Nigeria to work in the oilfields are being afforded protection by armed security personnel indicates they may be vulnerable to the criminal act of kidnapping. Will the ambassador provide her opinion on that matter?

There are mixed messages in the media with regard to the President of Nigeria and his wife. When the children were kidnapped by Boko Haram, a number of delegations travelled to meet the President. Apparently, his wife was very dismissive of some of the women who were members of those delegations on the grounds that they were not the mothers of the children in question and this resulted in negative publicity. There have also been disturbing reports that Nigerian troops operating in the north of the country are ill-disciplined. It is alleged that some have run away from the conflict with Boko Haram, while other reports indicate these troops are engaging in massive human rights abuses in the region. Will the ambassador indicate whether she believes these reports to be true or whether they are a form of propaganda on the part of the western media? I congratulate Nigeria on the role it is playing in Africa, particularly in the context of providing troops for African Union peacekeeping missions in areas of conflict.