Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. As this is the first time I have addressed him since his elevation, I congratulate him on that.

At the outset, I thank Senator McDowell for giving leadership to our group in this area. Sitting here, listening to the debate this afternoon, the level of passion from all sides of the House and the excellent speeches that were made by all of my colleagues must surely drive home the message that we in Ireland need to wake up.

In January, the European Parliament passed a resolution urging member states to revisit their engagement policies with Taiwan, and I fully support this. Having visited Taiwan as a member of the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Society, I know only too well the value of democracy and trade in this regard. Indeed, when we visited Taiwan, we visited at the time of an election. It was something else to see tens of thousands of supporters of different parties on the streets, speeches being made on street corners and massive rallies. We saw it all. We visited election centres and we watched people freely come in to cast their franchise and freely leave. Nobody at any stage stopped anybody or spoke to them. The officials who were in attendance simply did as they do in every constituency in Ireland; they handed out ballot papers and people cast their ballot and put it in the ballot box. That is democracy, and we saw it in operation.

I honestly do not believe that active engagement between Members of the Oireachtas and Taiwan can damage the relations between Ireland and China or are in conflict with the long-standing One China policy. However, I am aware of the fact the Chinese get extremely upset when they hear people speaking about Taiwan, Tibet and various other things we do not like about China. That is typical of the bully who was in the schoolyard when we were kids. He determined who you could be friends with and who you could not be friends with. The true test of friendship is to be able to tell a friend what they are doing is wrong and not to have that friend turn on you and say, “Well, if that is the way you feel, I am not going to talk to you anymore.”

Senator Lynn Ruane spoke about how we seem forced into prefacing everything we say with trade. Sometimes, just sometimes, there is more to life than trade.

I and my Independent colleagues have often spoken in the House about the plight of Richard O'Halloran, who is still in China two and a half years on. I have spoken to his wife many times. If diplomatic relations are to have any value, Richard O'Halloran should be at home. He should not be in China. His children are growing up and they will not know their father. I spoke to somebody the other day who was involved in the resettlement of prisoners from Vietnam. One of the things he was advocating was that I would get somebody to make a DVD of what has happened while Richard has been away because, when he comes home, he has to, if we like, reacquaint himself with what has happened in Ireland. This man is locked up out there for no reason and with no judicial process to keep him there. When the Minister of State goes back today to the Minister, Deputy Simon Coveney, please tell him I do not buy it anymore that we are working hard to get Richard home. If we were working hard to get Richard home, and if we had any standing whatsoever in the world, Richard would be home.

Way before I came into this House, I visited China as a lonely, or lowly, teacher. I went out there to the family of a student and I was brought around to visit schools. I contrast what happened there with what happened when we watched the elections in Taiwan. At every school we went to, we were welcomed. It was very formal and the formality became more strict when the political officer came in. There was no feeling of people with free speech. In almost every classroom I visited, I was asked what I thought of China's record on human rights. Why was I asked that question? If anyone visited a school in Ireland, England, France or Germany, does somebody turn around and ask, “What do you think of our record on human rights?” This was all predisposed. The reason was that China is desperate to show itself as a country that respects human rights while, at the same time, showing absolutely no respect for human rights.

In the time I have left, I want to talk about the corporate world. Senator Buttimer spoke about corporate support for the Beijing Olympics. It should be nothing unusual to any of us here to recognise the fact that the big corporate world could not give a continental damn about human rights or anything else. Their bottom line is profit, and profit only. They do not care about human rights. If they did, we would not see the exploitation of children making clothing in some parts of the world or children mining in other parts of the world. These things would not happen if big corporate world people had any respect for human rights. Maybe they are in the right place in Beijing, standing alongside a totalitarian regime that cares sweet damn all for the people it rules over.

I know the Minister of State represents this country abroad and he does a good job. When he goes back to his ministerial colleagues, please tell them we have to wake up. We may be small but we do have a voice. Let us open an office in Taipei. They were damn good to us when we needed PPE quickly.