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

I am reading from the Commission document. The Minister can explain it to me but he has not explained it in his answer.

Twenty per cent of the world's oxygen comes from the Amazon rainforest. In the past ten years, an area the size of Portugal of those rainforests has been cut down. Mr. Bolsonaro is accelerating on a massive scale an already horrendous programme of deforestation. It is not getting better because of the trade negotiations with the EU; it is getting worse. He has declared war on the indigenous people and on the forests. Deforestation has increased 60% in the past year alone, 800 sq. km of rainforest were lost last month alone. Last year 5,800 sq. km of forest, which is 100 times the area of Manhattan, were cut down and that is accelerating. I would not even repeat some of the stuff Bolsonaro has said about the indigenous people but I will give the Minister a flavour so that he understands what this guy is about. He said "it's a shame that the Brazilian cavalry hasn't been as efficient as the Americans, who exterminated the Indians." This guy is seeking to exterminate the indigenous people and slaughter the rainforest that produces 20% of global oxygen.

Does the Minister seriously think we should be doing trade deals with a guy like this? Does he honestly believe he is going to respect environmental rights, human rights or anything? He does not care about these things, he is celebrating this deal. To give another flavour he said of one his political opponents, Maria do Rosário, she was "not worth raping". He described immigrants as "scum". He supports the use of firing squads and talked about the need for a hyper-aggressive police force, saying "a policeman who doesn’t kill isn’t a policeman". He said about homosexuality "I would be incapable of loving a homosexual son" and "I would prefer that my son die in an accident than show up with some guy". That is the sort of person we are dealing with. Does the Minister honestly believe we should be trading with people like that? Is that not an absolute betrayal of the fight to deal with the climate crisis and human rights on a global scale, and in particular for the victims of that kind of filth in Brazil?

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