Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent)

I am one of Ireland's five-person parliamentary delegation to the OSCE so I have had the privilege and opportunity to see the workings of that parliamentary assembly for myself.

When I first heard about the position, my uninformed view of the OSCE was that it was probably a bloated bureaucracy which was doing some good work at its core. I also thought its budgets may have grown, including expenses and wages, and the level of accountability may have diminished over time.

I have to say, however, that I have been impressed by what I have seen. I have attended a few parliamentary assembly meetings and it has been a great learning experience and a privilege for me to see international diplomacy working with so many nations involved. It operates in a slow and peculiar way but it does seem to work and I am delighted that it does.

There probably is some merit to the charge against the institution that it has lost the run of itself in certain areas and that the bureaucracy has grown a little too big. That is something that should be looked at but nonetheless some serious and credible work is certainly being done there. Election monitoring is one of the activities in which the OSCE's parliamentary assembly is engaged. It is important both in Europe and elsewhere in order to bring a trusted light to what is going on in some parts of the world.

I wish to thank officials of the Department of Foreign Affairs for the support they have given to our OSCE parliamentary assembly members over the last year. Their work has been exemplary.

I welcome Ireland's chairmanship-in-office of the OSCE this year, as well as the Tánaiste's leadership position. I am somewhat disappointed by the lack of focus and attention that our chairmanship of the OSCE has had in the media. I would like it to have more because it is an international leadership role and a phenomenal opportunity for us. I do not know what more can be done about it. It may be that the media are simply not interested in aspects of it. It is not a criticism but I would urge some thinking and focus to see if we can do more to highlight the fact that for one year Ireland has this important leadership position.

I applaud the focus this year on combating human trafficking. There is an important event coming up at one of the OSCE assemblies on that topic. I know that the Government, including the Tánaiste and his Department, are taking a lead in this regard. I was at a multilateral meeting in Vienna on human trafficking and met people there who have been working full-time on the matter for years. They have led the fight against human trafficking in America, Canada and elsewhere. I cannot think of a more fitting word than evil - pure, unadulterated evil - to describe human trafficking. The vast majority of those trafficked, as we know, are women. This problem requires an absolutely uncompromising multinational approach, which the OSCE is well placed to provide. There are other organisations which are also well placed, but the OSCE really can help on this point.

I wonder if there is an opportunity for Ireland to take an even bigger position on this matter. In terms of things that Ireland can lead on globally, the fight against human trafficking is surely one. Given the focus on human trafficking during Ireland's chairmanship-in-office of the OSCE, is there an opportunity for us to seriously examine our own response? Is there an opportunity for a really effective public awareness campaign? Could we deploy more resources to An Garda Síochána and other State agencies involved in the prevention and detection of human trafficking, as well as supporting the victims when they are found? I believe there is an opportunity for us to go much further and take the initiative as a global leader in tackling human trafficking, which is a nasty, evil practice around the world.

I welcome the forthcoming conference on Internet freedom. In opposition I have been involved in trying to push the Government on some of its recent initiatives on Internet freedom. The Government could be in danger of being reasonably accused of a certain amount of hypocrisy in holding this conference while treating the discussion on Internet freedom - which we tried to have in this Chamber - with disregard. Deputy Catherine Murphy and I tabled a reasonable counter-statutory instrument to the one being introduced by the Minister of State, Deputy Sherlock. We secured an hour's debate under protest and at the end of the debate I pushed the Minister by asking him if he would take on a single letter, word or idea we had discussed, which was backed by 80,000 people in an online poll and backed by some serious aspects. The Minister replied that he would not change a single word and that he had told me before the debate that he would not change a single word. I ask the Tánaiste to be careful that we reflect in this House what we are trying to promote at the event on Internet freedom.

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