Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Sorry, Chairman, I have to press the motion because it is important. This is the 100th anniversary. Next week is not the 100th anniversary. Of course it is a sensitive issue. It will remain a sensitive issue whether it is this week or next week.

I had the pleasure and honour of serving on the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs with our President. I am sure he has an opinion. I would not dare to venture what that would be, but I think many of us could guess what it would be. The facts are there. We know how the system works in this House. I am asking my colleagues to abstain if they cannot support the motion so that it can be passed. The reply from the officials is not going to change. If the Minister, who signed off on that reply, believed it deserved attention, he would have given a different reply. The reply is not going to change.

There is nothing offensive about it. What we are acknowledging is the suffering and loss of the Armenian people in a genocide that has been acknowledged by the European Union and others throughout the world as a genocide. Others, for political reasons, have chosen not to acknowledge it. The statistics say 1.5 million people but the fact is it was a genocide. Therefore, I will press the motion.