David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will not repeat any of the questions that have been asked. I will declare one thing at the beginning. When I was Chairman of the justice committee a number of years ago, I served with the then Senator, Katherine Zappone, and found her to be an independent thinker, courageous, brave, very talented, very diplomatic, highly respected, hard-working and selfless. I want to put that on the record because too many times we have had hearings, debates and media reports about colleagues and former colleagues after which they were totally exonerated. I am referring to people such as the former Minister, Alan Shatter, one of the most amazing Ministers I have ever come across. He is extraordinarily hard-working and talented and was virtually hounded out of office, as was Frances Fitzgerald when she was in the same Department. Again, both of them were totally exonerated later. In my experience of working with Katherine Zappone, she was exemplary: very caring, very hard-working and selfless. It is a missed opportunity that she has now decided, because of the controversy, to walk away from this position.

I have just one question for the Minister. I note a number of reports state democracy is in decline around the world. My colleague, Deputy Lawless, mentioned a number of countries where this is evident, and there are far more. We have seen 15 consecutive years of decline in global freedoms. We see 38% of the world's population now living under regimes which are not free. Most recently, of course, we have seen reports of what could happen or might be happening in Afghanistan, which we will come to later. That is one country which is getting the spotlight at the moment but there is so much more happening in many more jurisdictions, and democracy, even in parts of Europe, is in retreat, as, again, Deputy Lawless said earlier. In March of this year Freedom House said the share of the countries designated "not free" had reached its highest level since the deterioration of democracy began in 2006 and that countries with declines in political rights and civil liberties outnumbered those with gains by the largest margin recorded during the 15-year period since. We are, therefore, living in a time when, more than ever, we need people advocating for freedom of expression and of opinion if we value democracy as we practise it.

There are some countries which say our form of democracy is wrong and what they are doing is correct. Obviously, I do not agree with that and I am sure most colleagues here do not either. Across the world we see media, including independent media, being attacked, reporters being executed and jailed, opposition groups being banned, leaders of opposition groups being jailed and so on. Will the Minister comment on that? Is there anything in these reports to influence his thinking in appointing somebody to be our advocate for freedom of expression and of opinion globally? I ask colleagues to join me in saying that, now more than ever, when democracy is under such threat internationally, we need to be vigilant. It is happening internally in countries where alt-right and alt-left groups are coming forward and it is happening across Europe. We saw it happen in the United States as well earlier this year. We have to be vigilant, therefore, and look at the bigger picture.

Again, I hold the former Minister, Katherine Zappone, in the highest regard.

She is a woman of exceptional ability and courage, as she has shown by what she has done throughout her life. She was an inspired choice for this particular position as she was living in New York. We have got to raise our gaze a little here and look at the bigger picture. That is hugely important. That is all I have to say on the matter. I feel that it is a missed opportunity and big mistakes were made that were not intentional.

I thank the Minister and his officials for being here with us. However, I think we have got to be more vigilant. Perhaps later on the committee should have a look at what is happening with respect to democracy, freedom of the press and freedom of expression and opinion across the world to see what we can do to strengthen freedom for people who are not experiencing it. In fact, when you look at it, Ireland is very high on the human freedom index. We are very much up there. We are also very high on the world press freedom index. Therefore, we are very fortunate in this country, but we should not take it for granted.