Barry Ward (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh. Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire go dtí an Teach. Tá mé ag féachaint ar an rún seo agus mé ag smaoineamh go bhfuilimid i gcónaí ag labhairt faoin Úcráin agus na huafáis atá ag tarlú ann. Tá fadhbanna sa tSín agus i dtíortha eile ar fud an domhain agus uafáis den chineál céanna ar siúl iontu ach ní bhíonn an seans againn go minic labhairt faoin Iaráin agus na huafáis atá ag tarlú ansin. Ba cheart dúinn é sin a dhéanamh agus sin é an fáth go gcuirim fáilte roimh an rún seo agus táim buíoch do mo chomhghleacaithe i bhFianna Fáil a chur romhainn é.

The funny thing is, although it is not really funny, that when one looks at Iran over the decades, it has presented a very different face to the world. In pictures of Tehran from the 1970s there are women dressed in mini skirts, fashionable clothes and what we would consider to be normal dress as they walked around the city in a relatively free and relatively normal, at least by western standards, environment. After the fall of the Shah, religious zealotry and extremism took over. A series of measures have been put in place, including the morality police, a term that is disgusting in every possible respect and the people in Iran, but particularly women, have suffered the most extraordinary restrictions on their personal liberty and their freedom of expression and speech. It is such a retrograde act for Iran to take those backward steps. Of course, we are looking at it through western eyes but we are also looking at it through human eyes. When we look at what happened, it is very difficult to justify the changes and the extraordinary suppression that have taken place.

As I said at the outset, so often in this Chamber we have discussed the problems that exist following the awful illegal invasion of Ukraine, for example, or the suppression of the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang in China and the genocide that is occurring there. I have also raised Belarus in this Chamber on many occasions and much of what we are talking about now, in a slightly different way, echoes what is happening in Belarus. The suppression of individual citizens by a government is very much there and is what we have heard about, particularly in recent days, in Iran. That said, it is not a new development by any measure. Iran does not link itself with good human rights practices. We know that. This is not a surprise and yet, in recent days and weeks, we have seen the most extraordinary outcry from ordinary women who have had enough of the suppression of their freedom of expression and who have taken steps that are brave beyond measure. Theirs is a bravery that we cannot possibly understand coming from the comfort of a stable and fair western democracy where human rights are respected. The women who have been mentioned by Senator Chambers in her contribution deserve not just our admiration and respect but our support.

When we talk about human rights, we must accept that talk is not enough. We have to do more than that. As we look at the scenes in Tehran and elsewhere, we see people who are being oppressed, murdered, beaten down and brutally subjected to the authority of a state that has no authority, in my view. What would we do if those people were our daughters, sisters, mothers or friends, or if we knew them? We feel like we know some of them but we do not. It is an unfortunate consequence of diplomacy that we sometimes sit by and watch these things happen but I do not agree with Senator Keogan that we should not continue to have diplomatic relations with Iran. It is incredibly important that we build diplomatic relations but not on a false pretence and not without speaking truth to these people. The Minister and I have had conversations about the actions of other countries and how it is important for Ireland to stand up to them, not just in the context of the UN Security Council but also in the context of our diplomatic position in the world, as a country that respects the rule of law. We have spoken of the importance of the ability of the Minister for Foreign Affairs to speak to his counterpart in Iran or any other country and say that we cannot tolerate this, that it is not good enough and that we cannot continue to allow it to happen. We are not a great military power. We are not a country that is ever likely to engage in the kind of action that would cause the Iranian Government to sit up and take serious notice but we do have power. We have soft power. We have our own voice to use.

One of the things that must come from this motion is a determination to say to the Minister's counterparts in Iran and to our counterparts in Iran, if we ever get to speak to them, that this is not acceptable and that it does down the ordinary Iranian people who have been mentioned in this debate. I have travelled to Iran and have found ordinary Iranians to be decent people who want to live decent, ordinary and peaceful lives but they are governed by a litter of rogues, bullies and murderers who absolutely insist on imposing their view of the world on their citizens, particularly their female citizens. Frustrating as it is, I would really like the Minister to give us some insight into what he thinks we can do about this. What steps can Ireland take? What steps can we take, either as a Legislature or as a Government, to send a message to Iran that Ireland will not and cannot stand by and cannot quieten its voice when it comes to the awful, appalling, disgusting and insufferable situation that we are witnessing on our screens, the Internet, television news programmes and elsewhere? What can we do? What are we going to do? How are we going to stand with the women of Iran and tell their Government that this is not okay?