Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I believe we need a debate in the Chamber about where Ireland as a member state of the European Union stands in this new world, where grotesque distortions of truth and what we might call alternative facts are being elevated to international truth in rather alarming ceremonies held in conjunction with massive arms sales.

It is, as Robert Fisk has pointed out on a number of occasions and as I have hinted myself in some articles I have written, that we are getting ready for a war on Iran. The weapons are being put in place and the rhetoric is being deployed. It is a huge injustice, especially to a people whose regime is by no means perfect at all but whose people voted for moderation in recent days. It is one of the few countries, God bless us, in that neck of the woods where there are elections which mean anything.