Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman for inviting me to speak. I have been following the case for eight years along with Ms Caroline Dwyer and Ms Heaney. They are very welcome today, along with Ms Aisling Dwyer. The Dwyer family live in Ballinderry, County Tipperary. They are an incredible family and very well thought of. They need the committee's support. I have no questions, given that I have been involved for so long. I will make some comments and some suggestions to the committee on the issue.

From the way Ms Dwyer has put forward her evidence, we can see there is no closure for the Dwyer family. We need to help them to get some form of closure, whatever percentage that can be. For Ms Dwyer and her family there can never be full closure. They have lost their son. Michael Dwyer was executed, murdered by a foreign government. I have seen the evidence and videos. He was picked out and executed by a government. This Parliament needs to support the family in getting as much of this evidence as possible out there, highlighting it as much as possible and getting as much closure as possible.

Ms Dwyer has outlined the journey she has been on regarding the support here, the European Commission and the UN. However, the simple fact is that the Bolivian Government will not allow the evidence to come out. We saw it as recently as last night. They said the family could meet the witnesses when they travelled. All of a sudden, the witnesses disappeared and the ones they met were no use, given that they were being programmed. Last night, the family received a letter saying there had never been an official complaint. They have handed in written, signed complaints. The Bolivian Government is deliberately obstructing the process given that it knows it executed an Irish man. It picked him out and executed him. I believe he was summarily executed after the fact. I think it is the family's belief also. The evidence points to it. I have seen all the evidence.

This stinks from the very top, from the President of Bolivia. The prosecutor in the case had to seek refuge in Brazil. The evidence he has given is incredible, as is the evidence of Elod Toaso, who said Mr. Dwyer had been alive and had been brought back and executed. Nearly eight years ago, an Irish citizen was taken out by the Bolivian Government and executed, and, by God, we are going to have to do something about it and support the family.

I am convinced on this. I have followed this for many years. I have done whatever I can to support the family, and I know that all parties and all institutions have done so as well. Within the next 30 days, Caroline and her family, and Ms Catherine Heaney, who has done so much work pro bono to help the Dwyer family over the last number of years and who deserves our thanks, will have to send back a submission to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. They will need all the support they can get, and the Department will supply that.

I am asking this committee to send a delegation to Bolivia. This is an extraordinary situation. We have done this in the recent past, and rightly so. It does not have to be as large a delegation as that which went to Egypt but we need to show the Bolivian Government that we are not going to tolerate the blatant execution of an Irish citizen. We are going to highlight it to embarrass it, if it is not going to co-operate.

There is also an issue in regard to getting evidence on the record. We need a platform to put out all the evidence we are aware of. We need a medium to do that and any help or suggestions the committee would have in regard to doing that are welcome. We need a forum to do that before more time passes.

A declaration from this committee on its view in regard to what happened to Michael would also be helpful. Closure comes in many different ways. Initially, the way in which this family was treated by some aspects of the media in this country was nothing short of a disgrace. There is still an element of that out there. A declaration from this committee would be very supportive. This young man was executed. He was in Bolivia, he was working and he was executed for no reason.