Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise an issue which I must admit is very close to my heart. I have done two reports on the horrific conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. I have visited both countries. I was not allowed to visit Azerbaijan earlier this summer. It did not want anyone to go and see what was happening in Nagorno-Karabakh. I wish to express my horror that a former Member of this House presented himself with the Azerbaijan delegation last week and announced that he wants to be the consul for Azerbaijan. I can tell the Deputy Leader first hand, because I have the videos on my phone, that when those 100,000 people were ethnically cleansed in the past fortnight, there were dead Armenian civilians with their ears cut off and decapitated so these people could use trophies on social media. Children have been murdered. They are the most horrific actions on a par with anything we have seen, for example, in the war of Russia and Ukraine. A total of 100,000 people were ethnically cleansed and a former Member of this House who was here until around the last term is now championing that regime. I know how Azerbaijan works, and while they are very generous people, this is a regime that is not democratic. It executes and imprisons opponents. The former Member happens to be a Fianna Fáil member - I will not name him out of respect for the House, but everyone knows who it is - and this is what he is doing.

I must ask, in all conscience, can we do something collectively? If we do not stand up in relation to this issue, we are all to blame. I could not share those videos. They are just too horrific. I know first hand, however, from people from the region I have got to know over the two or three years I have been working on this issue the horrors inflicted on the people of Nagorno-Karabakh. I ask everyone to speak out in relation to this. It cannot be acceptable that a former Member of this House can now parade himself - prostitute himself - in relation to a regime like this. This goes above and beyond party politics. I find it hard to talk about this because when you speak, as I have, to people whose loved ones have been murdered in that way, it is incredibly emotional. I cannot express the horror in relation to what this former Member of the House is doing. I hope, on this occasion, that we can all agree and make a call that it is entirely unacceptable and brings all of us into disrepute. We should condemn that former Member of the House unreservedly and stand by the people of Armenia, just as we have stood by the people of Ukraine and elsewhere.