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

If you read the statement from the Taoiseach about the issues discussed at the European Council, you might on the face of it say they are reasonable, even admirable, things to be saying, in terms of the justifiable criticism of what Russia has done and is doing in Ukraine and the murder, brutality, kidnapping of children and generally criminal nature of the intervention by Russia’s rotten authoritarian regime. You might briefly think, to use the phrase the Taoiseach kept using, we are standing up in Europe for our core values and democratic values against the horror of the authoritarian warmongering regime of Putin.

But then, literally in the second paragraph of the speech, reference is made to a new arrangement with Tunisia, where the Saied regime is essentially establishing itself as a dictatorship, putting down the popular revolution that was part of the Arab Spring and was fighting for democracy. The Saied regime, with whom we are doing this deal, is a brutal authoritarian regime which has locked up all the opposition. I met with the son of their Ceann Comhairle, the speaker of the house in the Tunisian Parliament, who is in his 80s and has been jailed. This is a man with a long record of writing about human rights and an intellectual widely renowned for fighting for civil and human rights. He, along with all the opposition in Tunisia, is imprisoned by a dictatorship essentially modelling itself on the Al Sisi regime, which was the counter-revolutionary regime that put down the Egyptian revolution and with which we are also co-operating. Where stand the core principles and democratic values when the Government says, on the one hand, it is against authoritarianism and brutal regimes and, on the other hand, does deals with authoritarian, brutal regimes that are crushing democracy when it suits European strategic interests?

Then there is Palestine, the most egregious example of these shocking double standards. Putin does illegal annexation, war crimes, crimes against humanity, brutal warmongering and indiscriminate killing. We condemn it. Israel does exactly the same thing, week-in, week-out, month-in, month-out, year-in, year-out for decades. What do we do about it? Nothing. In fact, we do worse than nothing; we give Israel favoured trade status within the European Union. We continue to buy their weapons into the European Union and sell them weapons to kill Palestinian people. Where stand the core values?

We have an extreme far-right regime in Israel that is saying it has no intention of giving a just settlement or doing any kind of deal with the Palestinians. It is out to wipe out the Palestinians, steal their land and destroy their lives. We tolerate it because certain of our so-called allies are allies of Israel. The United States backed them to the hilt. Biden backs them to the hilt. Germany backs them to the hilt. The United Kingdom backed them to the hilt. What do we say about that? Zilch.

Join the dots in all of this. If we are collaborating with authoritarian, brutal, undemocratic regimes around the world, is it any wonder the people from those countries flee to Europe, trying desperately to find somewhere better to live? We put up the blockers on them, characterise them as a threat and allow them to drown in the Mediterranean. If we stopped doing deals with brutal regimes that treat their people like dirt and imprison their elected representatives, maybe so many people would not feel the need. At the moment, it is even more irrational because we have desperate labour shortages in every area of Irish society and we have people who would be more than willing to work to help us build the houses we need and work in health services, care professions and almost every area.

As an example of this, I was talking to the Postgraduate Workers Organisation this morning, who were giving a briefing. Many of our PhD researchers are from non-EEA countries. They are paid a pittance and not given the proper permits to allow them to work or assert their rights as workers, even though they contribute significantly to Irish society. That is one example where we are not showing a commitment to people who could valuably contribute and are valuably contributing to our society.

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