Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will work on that from my side. To return to my point, part of the President's comment was very welcome and part of his comment the bishop described as far-fetched and unhelpful. When I spoke to the bishop, he was very generous about President Higgins and said “I do not really blame him.” However, the Nigerian Government is pushing an analysis that seeks to portray these atrocities as happening in the context of disputes between tribal people over land. As the bishop pointed out, every month Catholic priests are being kidnapped and it costs a fortune to ransom them back. It is not happening to imams. There are, of course, issues that are fite fuaite. Frequently, disputes over land resources and disputes between tribes cotton on to religious differences but, at the end of the day, and here is the point, if we describe people as victims as well as perpetrators of atrocities in the same breath, then our words lose the power to condemn and bring about change.

The bishop also said he would be only too delighted if the President and his advisers wanted to get into some kind of dialogue where the context could be explained. I can tell the House that Christian leaders in Nigeria are very worried that the Government in that country is looking the other way and perhaps even facilitating armed extremist Muslim terrorists, who may have land interests but are also motivated by religious hatred. That issue needs to be opened up, just as much as we open up the horrors that are going on in Ukraine. Just because it is Africa, just because it is further away, we must be not be ignorant, vague or bland in our assessment of what is going on.

In conclusion, I will say this. Our President makes fantastic comments from time to time and he did so again on housing, but when he or, indeed, his predecessor, Mrs. McAleese, gets it wrong, there needs to be something better coming from the press office than a doubling down. If an error is pointed out in good faith, it is great leadership if we show the capacity to say “Yes, I did not get that quite right and I am willing to amend my hand.” Our President does well. He would do even better if he was capable of doing that from time to time and, indeed, so would all of us.

I conclude my intervention by asking for a debate. This is not having a go at anybody. I want a debate about what is happening in Nigeria. I want a debate about the persecution of Christian and other religious minorities but, in particular, the horrors of what is going on in Nigeria at the moment must be ventilated. We must get our embassies putting pressure on the Nigerian Government to talk honestly about what is going on and to hear our representations about what it needs to do in order to protect religious freedom and protect people from tribes that are out to ravage them, burn people and kill people in their churches.