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

There can be no more opportune time than when the G8 summit is taking place in this country at the same time as Ireland will hold the Presidency of the European Union, and when we might have the President of the most powerful state in the world might be visiting this country, to raise issues of global and international importance. We can agree on that. I ask the Taoiseach to raise, not necessarily at the same time and not in a confrontational way, two urgent matters of international importance in regard to the Middle East where Ireland has a particular role. We have a very strong connection to the doctors being persecuted in Bahrain because many of them were trained here and the United States has failed to say what should be said about the persecution of the democratic movement in Bahrain and the persecution of doctors trained in this country. First, I ask the Taoiseach to invite here some time next year representatives of those who are being persecuted to give their side of the story. Second, I ask him to invite a representative of the Gaza section of the Palestinian Legislative Council whose members have asked to come to this country to meet-----

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