Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise the issue of the World Cup, which starts on Sunday in the horrific regime that is Qatar. There have been well documented details of human rights abuse relating to Qatar and workers. According to the Qatari Government, 15,000 workers have died at work in the past ten years but in many cases it put those deaths down to natural causes. The Guardian did an exposé which showed that 6,500 workers from five countries alone died in that period. There has been well documented horrendous abuse of workers' rights in terms of not being paid wages, which is wage theft. All of these workers are migrants and had no legal right to join a trade union. The so-called reforms are nothing more than window dressing. It has been hugely disappointing to see Irish politicians in some cases try to join in with that window dressing, as happened a few weeks ago, unfortunately. We can then talk about the rights of women because, basically, they have no rights. If they want to make decisions about their life, such as to get married, study abroad or even travel abroad, they cannot do so without the permission of their male guardian. There is also the horrendous treatment meted out to the LGBTQI community, with people having been subjected to severe beatings this year. If they are Muslim, they can be threatened with the death penalty.

The decision to go to Qatar is horrendous but the point that really bothers me is that in the past year the State sent a trade delegation to Qatar, led by the then Minister of State, Deputy Troy. There was not one word about human rights. Similarly, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy McConalogue, went to Saudi Arabia earlier this year, just days before 81 people were executed in one day. Again, there was not one word about human rights. I am calling for an urgent debate on the Government's stance in respect of human rights in these horrendous Middle East dictatorships such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia. There seems to be a significant set of double standards at work here.