Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I ask the Leader to organise a debate today or, at the latest, tomorrow, on the case of Ibrahim Halawa, whose trial has been postponed yet again until October. The Government has not been doing enough on this case. Some 494 people face a mass trial with Ibrahim Halawa. Two were released today and three have died in custody. The questions all of the Government should ask are: why were the two released and how did the three die in custody? Ibrahim could face the same fate, because according to his legal team he faces the death penalty, yet our Government says that he does not. The ambassador from Egypt says that he prays that Ibrahim is not facing more serious charges. If he faces the death penalty and gets convicted on that charge, the presidential decree that our Government is hanging its hat on, saying that we can intervene after the trial, does not apply. Our Government wants transparency; it says that it needs and likes transparency. Yet, Fine Gael and the Labour Party in the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade refused in a vote to have Ibrahim Halawa's legal team come before it. The committee did not want to hear what they had to say. I ask the Leader to organise this debate tomorrow. Ibrahim is an Irish citizen. He is the only Irish citizen that Amnesty International has declared a prisoner of conscience, yet our Government says that soft diplomacy is what will work. It has not worked, but what does work and has worked for the Australians is hard diplomacy. They got their citizen Peter Greste released on a presidential decree while awaiting trial.