Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome what the Minister of State has said about support for lifting the embargo. I call on this State to do everything that it can to highlight this issue. In recent days and weeks, we have witnessed the efforts of what I can only call sinister forces attempting to subvert the combined efforts of the Cuban people and Government. It smacks of the old, 1980s, Reagan school of CIA dirty plays. It is of no benefit. We need to move into a new sphere. We have seen the abject failure of America when it has attempted to carry out regime change. We have even seen it try to extricate itself from some situations that it found itself in in recent days. There is a significant power differential, which needs to be accepted. It is America versus the tiny country of Cuba. It is stunting and forcing people into significant hardship. It is wrong and we have to do whatever we can about it.

I always compare Cuba with other countries in South and Central America, the Caribbean and Latin America, which America would consider its backyard.

In fairness, we need to look at what Cuba did in wiping out illiteracy and innumeracy, and at the health system it put in place, compared to other countries that have been impacted by America and the major difference between those that have and those that have not in those place, to see why we continue to give support to the Cuban revolution. However, we need to give Cuba real support by playing our part in ensuring that this utterly wrong blockade is lifted and that there can be regular, proper economic activity in Cuba.

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