Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

The Taoiseach said but one sentence on human rights in China. What did he discuss with the Chinese dictatorship? Did he raise, for example, the fact that 500,000 Chinese people are in detention without trial? Did he raise the fact that the Falun Gong, Christians, Tibetans, Uighurs and anybody dissenting politically against the Chinese regime, including poets and writers who criticise it, are ruthlessly dealt with and imprisoned? China has one of the highest rates of execution and abuse of the death penalty. Its trials are a joke for people who oppose the regime. There is a brutal dictatorship in place. Do morality, the commitment to democracy and concern for human rights go out the window when it comes to business, commerce and profit? In the Taoiseach's entire speech, he devoted but one sentence to human rights. What did he discuss? Where is the morality in developing close relationships with the Chinese regime when it is a brutal dictatorship?

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