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

I welcome expanding diplomatic trade and cultural links with countries around the world. Undoubtedly, that is a good thing to do in an increasingly globalised world, especially in a world where people like Donald Trump are trying to dig people back into nasty little nationalist trenches.

In tandem with those links, our reputation is important. I heard the discussion earlier about Trump and I welcome the criticisms of the barbaric treatment of young children being separated from their parents. Some 12,000 of these children are now encaged in the most horrific conditions. The Taoiseach did not answer Deputy Coppinger's question about whether he considers this as a line that has been crossed or action that goes too far. She asked whether the Taoiseach should withdraw the invitation of the Government to Donald Trump to come to this country if we want to improve our international reputation. Reference was made to our humanitarian reputation and our reputation for humanitarian values. Is it not time to make a firm statement that Donald Trump is not welcome in this country and will not be invited to put his footprint, to use that term, in this country while thousands of children are encaged in a most barbaric fashion, separated from their parents and criminalised for simply being migrants?

See this speech in context