Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will try to be brief and will start by responding to the last question raised by Deputy Murphy. Ireland has made clear on a number of occasions our continued concerns about the human rights situation in Egypt in general. We intervened at the UN Human Rights Council to express these concerns in September 2014, indicating our continued concerns over arbitrary detention, selective justice and respect for the rule of law, impunity in cases of civilian deaths at the hands of the security forces, sexual abuse and violence against prisoners as well as proposed new measures to restrict the freedom of civil society. Many of these issues were also raised in the separate EU statement delivered during the same debate.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Flanagan, has raised our concerns directly with his Egyptian counterpart Mr. Shoukry, stressing the importance that we attach to upholding basic rights like freedom of expression and the rights of a free press. He also set out in numerous statements the Government's strong concerns in respect of the case of Ibrahim Halawa, including on Monday, 27 April 2015. There have been calls for me to intervene in this case directly. I keep in very close contact with the Minister, Deputy Flanagan about the matter and am very conscious of the need not to escalate this in the wrong way. People have referred to the interventions of the Australian and Canadian Prime Ministers leading to the release of their citizens but we must be very careful about making comparisons with other cases which are based on very different facts. Irrespective of any action taken by the Australian Prime Minister or the Canadian Government, none of the al-Jazeera journalists were released while their cases were still pending before the Egyptian courts. They had all been sentenced before their release.

References have been made to moving Ibrahim Halawa from the current area of the prison in which he is being kept. Ensuring Ibrahim Halawa's welfare while in detention is clearly an issue of concern to us here. The Irish embassy in Cairo is in very regular contact with the Egyptian authorities and as I said already, there have been 37 visits to Ibrahim. At a recent meeting between the Minister, Deputy Flanagan and Mr. Shoukry the latter emphasised that the matter was currently before the Egyptian courts. He said that he is conscious of the Irish Government's concerns over Ibrahim Halawa's welfare and the conditions of his ongoing detention and undertook to pursue directly the Irish Government's concerns with the appropriate Egyptian authorities. Both Ministers agreed that this should continue.

In respect of Mr. Halawa's bail application, all bail applications were refused and a decision was taken that all defendants would remain in custody until the end of the trial. It is important for the House to know that according to information recently received by the embassy from Ibrahim Halawa's legal team, not all of the defendants are facing identical charges as was originally believed to be the case and which was a key cause of concern. It now appears that there are different charges against different defendants within the group trial and that Ibrahim Halawa is one of a relatively large group of defendants facing more preliminary charges related to events at the al-Fatah mosque, namely, presence inside the mosque at the time of arrest; refusal to leave the mosque when requested to do so and when offered safe passage by military police; travelling from a different part of the city with the intention of getting involved in a protest; and assisting in locking and barricading the mosque from the inside, according to photograph and video evidence. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Minister are seeking clarification of the exact charges against Ibrahim and examining what this change may mean. In the meantime, and on the face of it, the new information would seem to be a somewhat positive development. This is being very carefully monitored by the Minister.

I will now respond to Deputy Martin's final comments about direct recapitalisation.

Deputy Martin makes the point that one gets the sense of this being a major breakthrough. I was at the meeting until 5 a.m. and eventually there was no objection to the decision taken by the European Council with Ireland named specifically in there. That decision still stands and that option still remains open for the Government to pursue.

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