Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On Palestine, which we often talk about here, we are pretty consistent. Ireland is one of the most consistent countries in the world when it comes to what we say about Palestine. I have certainly tried to be during the five years I have been in this job. I point to my very clear criticism of settlement expansion, of demolitions, of forced evictions, my criticism of the human rights situation that is allowed to continue in Gaza, my strong criticisms of the targeting of civilian infrastructure in Gaza when that has happened, as well, of course, as rocket fire out of Gaza, of which I have been very critical. I have travelled to Israel and Palestine many times in those five years. I would like to think I am being consistent there and I hope I will continue to be.

As I said, my involvement with Iran has been an unusual one in recent years because of the specific responsibility around the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA, and the Security Council. This has allowed me to have many more conversations with two consecutive Iranian ministers of foreign affairs than I would normally ever have. This has permitted me to have very direct conversations on more recent concerns.

What happened with the meeting with the ambassador was he gave me a written document on the official response from the Iranian Government on the accusation of Iranian supply of weapons to Russia. To be fair to him, he just handed it over and that is, in many ways, the role of an ambassador. We have of course challenged the accuracy of that document since then.

On the Human Rights Council, we have been very supportive of having a debate on 24 November at the council on the developing situation in Iran.

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