Gabrielle McFadden (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The witnesses are very welcome. I thank them for taking the time to come into us this morning. I do not ever repeat what other people have said and some of what I wanted to say has already been said, so I will not go back over it. As was said, Turkey is a candidate country for EU accession. Even before the coup, there were quite worrying trends regarding the suppression of freedom of expression and democracy there. Mr. White said that 90 journalists were in jail and that some of their families were in hiding or had fled the country in fear of being arrested and there have been attempts to bring them back. Do we know where these people are and the circumstances in which they are living, or if they have already been arrested, in what circumstances are they living? Are all the journalists Turkish or are there other nationalities involved? What is the atmosphere on the ground in Turkey? As lay people, we all know Turkey from a tourism point of view, and tourism is a huge contributor to its economy. Has it been grossly affected? What do the witnesses know about that? As was asked, will the witnesses name things that we, as a committee and a country, could physically do to help those journalists? I would be interested to hear their opinions on those points.