Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy Leader and other Members of this House know that over the past two years, I have constantly raised the case of Robert Pether. Mr. Pether is an Australian citizen, married to an Irish citizen whose children are all Irish citizens. He has been locked up in an Iraqi jail following a most spurious trial in an Iraqi court and is wasting away. I want to acknowledge the efforts of the former Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Coveney, and the current Minister and Tánaiste, Deputy Micheál Martin, as well as those of the Deputy Leader of the Seanad, Senator Doherty. I have chatted with Senator Doherty about this from time to time. She has done so much and has tried to help as much as possible. Basically, the Pether family came back to Ireland and settled in Elphin in County Roscommon. As I said, there was a very spurious court case in Iraq and this brilliant engineer, Robert Pether, and his Egyptian colleague, became the meat in the sandwich and were blamed for a €12 million deficit on the central bank building in Iraq. If colleagues want to know about the talent of this man and his colleague, they should Google the central bank building in Iraq and look at the design of it, which is just unbelievable. Mr. Pether is very talented man but that is not where I am coming from today. I have watched a wife and children fall into despair over a loving husband and father who is locked away with no hope of release. I know that it is a difficult situation for senior Irish politicians because Mr. Pether is an Australian citizen. He had not yet become an Irish citizen but was in the process of becoming one. His wife's people are from Dublin and she is an Irish citizen, as are the children. We have been told that there is not much Irish politicians can do at the moment but they are doing their best. We are going to have an Iraqi Embassy here. It might then be a lot easier to deal with this case but this is really urgent.

I have said previously that I would like a debate on this. Maybe it is not usual to have a debate on such issues but we are talking about a family being completely destroyed here. We saw what happened to the O'Halloran's. This case is quite similar, if not worse, given the way in which Mr. Pether is locked up. We need to recognise that even if Mr. Pether is not an Irish citizen, his wife and children are and we must redouble our efforts on their behalf. I am not going to push Senator Doherty to give a direct answer on this today but would ask her to consider the possibility of a debate. I also ask the Irish media to take this matter up again, not for my sake but for the sake of this poor woman and her children. It is a desperate situation.