Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The reality is that the Government holds Topical Issue Debate in contempt. The Ceann Comhairle has raised this previously on numerous occasions with regard to the attendance of Ministers here. I ask that he would raise it again with the Government. I have had numerous Topical Issue matters and only once has a Minister with responsibility been in attendance here. This is disrespectful to the House. Topical Issue Debate is part of the routine of the House and the Ministers should make themselves available. They get plenty of notice as we must submit our matters on time. This is an ongoing problem that we should raise at every opportunity.

In July 2022, the Minister, Deputy Coveney, was written to by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions about the situation in Belarus. He was asked if he would make some demands for access by independent union representatives to meet the jailed representatives in Belarus. We do not know exactly what he did, if anything.

The Belarusian State has since then stepped up its persecution of union membership. Since April 2022 the Belarusian State has mounted a continuous onslaught on the members of the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions and its affiliated unions, including two industrial affiliates, the Free Trade Union of Metal Workers and the Belarusian Radio and Electronic Industry Workers' Union. Other union activists were arrested during the next few months and charged with bogus charges which ranged from insulting the President to membership in an extremist organisation. Indeed, if one could be charged with insulting the president in this country there would be people in jail here in relation to that. This shows the spurious nature of the charges being used.

The leaders of Belarusian democratic trade unions, including REP leaders and activists, have been imprisoned on trumped up extremist charges for over a year now. All this time they have been held in horrific conditions of KGB detention centres, prisons and correctional facilities and denied decent basic human rights. The autocratic Belarusian regime tries its hardest to demonise democratic trade unions and present their leaders as criminals. We should use all actions in our power to make that case so that independent union representation should be able to visit them in prison.

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