Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

For almost a year the Taoiseach has been telling us that he was going to speak truth to Donald Trump in the White House. On 21 June 2017, when referring to the visit to the White House the Taoiseach said "I will absolutely include in those meetings", with Donald Trump, "discussions of the issues he mentioned, whether it be climate change, human rights, LGBT rights and the need to respect Muslim people". On 27 June 2017, again in reference to visiting the White House for St. Patrick's Day, the Taoiseach said, "I will not shirk from raising issues such as climate change, LGBT rights and so on with President Trump". Just over a week before he went to the White House, I raised these issues with the Taoiseach and gave him these quotes during Leaders' Questions. He told me that he would raise the issues which I had raised including Trump's racist policies, his anti-LGBT measures, his anti-environmental policies and his anti-immigrant rhetoric.

It was all talk, was it not? The Taoiseach did not raise those issues. The only thing which he did was tell a silly joke about intervening in a planning matter on Trump's behalf. It was absolutely cringeworthy. The Taoiseach achieved the not inconsiderable feat of making Deputy Enda Kenny appear to have been a paragon of progressive thought on his previous trip. How does the Taoiseach explain the contrast between what he said he was going to do in advance of the trip to Washington and all the truths he was going to speak as against the reality of what he did and his craven behaviour there?

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