Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Replying for the other side of the House, as it were, I wish all the women here, all the women of the world and, indeed, all of us a happy International Women's Day. I add my few words of thanks to the women of the world and the women I know for all that they are and do.

I raise the so-called zero Covid proposal for even harsher lockdown measures for the remainder of the year. A report was published recently of the international correspondence and workings of the so-called Independent Scientific Advisory Group which has been pushing for a zero Covid approach. Many of the members of the group are virtually household names, such is the regularity of their appearances in the media. Its internal correspondence suggests that the group is not basing its positions on strict science but, in fact, has been massaging the facts to try to entice politicians into adopting a zero Covid strategy. Four weeks ago, the head of the group wrote to its members asking them to "look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty" and to "go after people and not institutions" because "people hurt faster than institutions". He stated that ridicule "is man's most powerful weapon" and that "the threat of a thing is usually more terrifying than the thing itself". In other words, people should be scared into accepting zero Covid.

That correspondence reads like something out of Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. Perhaps it is something from that book. The Social Democrats appear to have bought into the proposals. The correspondence suggests that the group has been deliberately adjusting its targets for zero Covid in order to convince that party's leadership to subscribe to the strategy. All of this information is in the public domain and yet, incredibly, it has not been reported by RTÉ or in the print media. Why is such a group allowed to scaremonger without at least being challenged by politicians or the media on its internal conversations about which we now know? When a medical doctor advocates hurting people because "people hurt faster than institutions", should that person's views be supported by Oireachtas Members and reported uncritically in the media?

I welcome the fact that University College Cork, UCC, has decided not to pursue the joint college arrangement with Minzu University in China. The arrangement would have seen courses across a number of disciplines being delivered jointly. Minzu University has been the focus of concern since one of its teaching staff and a member of the Uyghur community, Mr. Ilham Tohti, and several of his students were arrested and jailed on the basis of alleged separatist activity on its campus.It concerns me that UCC seems to be afraid to say that it has taken this latest decision on ethical grounds. The fear seems to be, according to one international consultant's report, that it had about the need for tact and the danger of leading the Chinese authorities to consider that they had lost face. Does this not show what a dangerous player we are dealing with in China when it comes to transparency and respect for human dignity? That is why I have been calling on the Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science to examine existing and planned relationships between Irish colleges and universities and Chinese counterparts. There is much more that needs to be examined and said but UCC's decision to freeze the joint college arrangement is at least a welcome first development.