Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Ibrahim Halawa is only aged 20, slightly younger than myself. He should be studying in college and living his life surrounded by friends and family. Those college years have been lost because he has spent the past 1,048 days incarcerated in a filthy, overpopulated Egyptian jail. He has detailed the ill-treatment and torture he has faced along with other prisoners. He has been unable to see an independent doctor from outside the prison. It is shocking that the Department of Foreign Affairs has been unable to facilitate and ensure an external doctor visits one of our citizens. Ibrahim was 17 when he was arrested but he is being treated as an adult. He was not charged until a year after this arrest and is now part of a sham mass trial in which he has no hope of ever receiving a fair hearing. His trial has been postponed 14 times.

Sinn Féin understands the Minister absolutely has to be tempered in his remarks but Egypt is a brutal dictatorship. The Egyptian Government is a notorious human rights abuser and there is no fair legal system. I do not look for the Minister to criticise the Egyptian military regime but I want him to ensure Ibrahim Halawa is released and returned to Ireland. The Department has repeatedly failed to do as much. The Minister has informed the Dáil and the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade that the presidential decree under law 140 can only be applied following a prison sentence. That is an untruth. It took Sinn Féin bringing Mr. Peter Greste and his team to Ireland to address Oireachtas Members and the media to explain that is not the case. Mr. Greste is an Australian citizen. He was able to return home because the Australian Government fought tooth and nail for his release and it applied for a decree prior to his sentence. He was on RTE radio yesterday explaining exactly that. He was sentenced in absentiaand cannot return to Egypt.

I regret that the Government has been misled twice by the Egyptian authorities, once when they lied about Ibrahim's whereabouts and which prison he was in and, again yesterday, when we were led to believe that his trial would conclude only to be postponed for a 14th time. When will the State change its strategy? When will the Minister apply for the presidential decree? I do not say the Department has failed to do anything and the Minister has outlined many of the actions it has taken. We acknowledge the number of consular visits that have been undertaken but the strategy is failing Ibrahim. Sinn Féin is not the only party saying that; the Minister's colleague in government, the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, said as much earlier.

According to yesterday's report on the trial, the judge released two defendants without reason. Is the Department investigating that? Why was Ibrahim not released? The most worrying aspect of this, which has not been picked up by the media, is that three defendants have died since the previous court hearing. As mayor of south Dublin, Firhouse and Tallaght, I was proud to represent the area in which Ibrahim grew up. I received a letter from him which stated:

Dia dhuit, a chara,

Thank you so much for your support and the Sinn Féin team in Tallaght, How much I miss Tallaght. Please send my Hellos to everyone at home.

Go raibh míle maith again

Yours

Ibrahim Halawa

Cell S

Tora Prison

Cairo

Egypt

I commend the work Ms Lynn Boylan, MEP, who is in the Gallery, has done on this case.

Why has the Minister not asked the Taoiseach to request that the European External Action Service monitors the trial?