Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

-----the routine detention of thousands of persons for demanding human and democratic rights, jailing them, torturing them and sending them away for years?

Does the Taoiseach accept that he should separate out this kind of violation of the most basic human rights from issues of trade? If the Taoiseach were talking to representatives of trade associations, would it have been appropriate to raise that any Irish firms that go to China should insist, unlike Apple and other Western multinationals, on total rights, including trade union rights, for Chinese workers? Would it be appropriate to raise that? How on earth can the Taoiseach stand up in this company, in front of the second most senior leader in this most repressive state, one of the most repressive and brutal in the world, and blithely ignore the plight and repression of those people?

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