Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I do not think anybody disputes the fact that, from time to time, Ireland raises concerns and even expresses great concerns, but it does not go beyond that. I spoke in this Chamber last week about the mounting evidence that our foreign policy lacks any moral core, because there is so much evidence of that recently. Days after returning from China, the Minister, Deputy Coveney, correctly said that the Belarusian President lacked democratic legitimacy. However, with him having recently returned home from a friendly meeting with a totalitarian communist dictatorship, it makes you wonder. The Minister then had a friendly meeting with the foreign minister of Iran, a country that supplies the rockets which Hamas were firing at civilians in Israel.

In 2019, the foreign minister in question, Mr. Mohammad Javad Zarif, supported and defended the executions of gay people in Iran, and thousands of gay people have been executed there since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Last week, pride flags were ripped down in Waterford, and Fine Gael MEPs and councillors were up in arms, took to the airwaves and, of course, got great support from the media. However, there was not a peep out of any of them when the deputy leader of their own party met with an Iranian minister who has publicly supported and defended the execution of thousands of gay people, which is a real abuse, a real injustice and a real outrage. Deputy John Paul Phelan was the only person to protest about it and, as far as I can tell, he got no support from his party colleagues. This tells us something about the attitude in Government. Do human rights mean something or are they just a pretext for virtue signalling here at home, the better to allow us to cower and doff the cap abroad in the interests of trade, primarily.