Joe O'Toole (Independent)

——-from a regime which has mobile execution chambers and kills people to sell their organs. China is opening coal stations at the rate of one a week, flooding people out of their homes in order to create electricity and engaged in numerous other activities. For polite people to be speaking to us as politicians and talking about the positive image of sport and not connecting it with politics conjures up a very clear message. The Olympic Games are putting a positive gloss on the most repressive, oppressive, unacceptable regime in the world. If leaders on the world stage stand beside the architects and leaders of China, then they are giving tacit international support to what it is doing — and they should not do this.

I am not asking athletes to get involved, but political leaders are a different matter. It is not right to say that politics and sport do not mix because it is far too late for that. The Olympic Games are in China for political reasons, and that is the reality. We are looking at an oppressive country, which tramples on human rights, suffocates free speech, denies freedom of religion and grabs countries such as Tibet and pulls them apart, as it has been doing since the Dalai Lama was kicked down the mountain in 1959. It is time we pointed out to China that as a member of the United Nations, it is required to subscribe to the UN programme on human rights. I would like the Minister for Foreign Affairs to be invited to the House to indicate that no one representing the Irish Government will stand with the Chinese leaders or participate in the opening ceremony.