Ms Aileen Morrissey:

Deputy Crowe asked how long the mothers of Soacha have been campaigning. They have been doing so since 2008 but there are still disappeared. We explained that even though we have a peace process in Ireland we still have issues to deal with such as the disappeared. These people live in fear every day, even under the present government and after the changes that have been made.

With regard to the wealth and poverty, when I was there I called it the country of contradictions and I could not believe it. Some days after we had been in the slums, meeting people and listening to their testimony, we returned to see an opera house with red carpets, limousines, glamour and the beautiful people going inside. I found this quite difficult because it was going from one extreme to another.

The people we met in government buildings were all experts on human rights, although I do not know what they do for their day job because I did not see very much of it out there. I am not being flippant when I say this, because this is too serious, but they all introduced themselves as human rights experts. Honestly I do not know about this because I did not see evidence of it.

In the question of the enforcement of human rights clauses in international trade agreements, it is important to understand that Colombia is a deeply dysfunctional society with, for example, quite a progressive written constitution as a result of a constitutional convention way back at the turn of the century. That constitution and its supreme court, which mirror high standards in developed societies, are being flagrantly disregarded. In whole swathes of the country decisions of the supreme court just do not run. If the constitutional authority of the state is flagrantly disregarded how can one begin to think of the clauses of trade agreements being complied with?

I actually met President Santos. I was on a human rights delegation when I was president of congress, I believe in 2010. He had won the election but had not been inaugurated and his predecessor, President Uribe, was making all sorts of trouble for him. He certainly would not share my world view even though there are those who would say he must have been to the left. His view is of building a developed capitalist economy. He is clearly a man who can see the potential to enhance his country.

However, grip is exercised, not in a coherent structured way, but as a result of dysfunction. Different groups and powerbrokers exercise influence in different parts of the country geographically and different parts of the apparatus. People who are in positions of authority as a result of a constitutional process are contaminated, implicated and compromised by things that have happened in the past with which they are associated or things that they failed to do. That grip is exercised by ruthless paramilitaries. It is not like incentivising a recalcitrant democracy or pseudo-democracy to act in a positive way. These people, who exercise this grip, simply do not intend to go out of business.

As a consequence there is no contest for the constitutional authority - the President - if faced on the one side by these people who can dismantle the society and on the other side by two Democratic senators or MPs and a report that will be shelved somewhere. Once this thing is signed along the dotted line all of us know as democrats that as long as we are dealing with a constitutional authority that even if it wished to comply with it cannot comply with it, then it is an exercise in pretending that we are all doing things that we know will not happen.