Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Tánaiste. There is a significant Uyghur population in Ireland, many of whom are Irish citizens. Almost all have seen family members impacted by China's extraordinary campaign that has seen over 1 million Uyghur people imprisoned without trial and subjected to extreme levels of abuse and torture. The Chinese Communist Party has not only detained one in ten of the Uyghur population but it is also seeking to wipe out and suppress the rich Uyghur culture through a campaign of coercive assimilation. This has been widely documented by human rights activists, journalists and scholars and through the harrowing testimony of men and women who have survived these camps and fled China.

The Irish Uyghur Cultural Association, which launches this week, aims to foster a sense of support and belonging for Uyghur people living in Ireland, and to share and celebrate Uyghur culture with the broader Irish population.Its aims are to protect and support Uyghur language and culture by providing a safe and embracive space for language learning and cultural performance, something which does not exist currently in Ireland, as well as sharing cultural exchange and forging relationships and friendships between Uyghurs and their fellow Irish.

I suspect many of the Uyghur people will regard this motion and the Tánaiste's presence here tonight with mixed feelings. There will be gratitude at one level on the basis that there is at least an attempt to raise issues of human rights - indeed, there is no doubt an acknowledgement that on occasions he does so - but the motion and the Tánaiste's approach in his work for the Government leave something to be desired.

I note there is no use of the words "condemn" or "unacceptable" in the motion. I suspect that when it comes to our dealings with the Chinese Government it is, as I said before, a nod to human rights but a very definite wink to trade. I take this opportunity to greet the representatives of the Chinese Government, who are no doubt monitoring us here tonight, as they are entitled to do. I have great respect for the Chinese people, but no respect for the Chinese Government or the Chinese Communist Party. I think we should all be unequivocal about that, but are we? When Premier Li Qiang came last week I noticed there were no questions allowed from the media. The Irish media seemed very complicit in that and there was no complaint. There was no opportunity for Ben Scallan or Gript to ask any hard questions, or indeed anyone else who might dare ask hard questions of governments these days.

The Chinese Premier's visit clearly demonstrates that the Irish Government regards trade as the main issue of importance when dealing with China. When the Taoiseach was asked about the human rights abuses of the Uyghurs, he said: "I think it's fair to say that they would have a very different view of the facts and would dispute a lot of what has been said about China in the media." I invite the Tánaiste to condemn those shoddy words here tonight. Here is the leader of the Government telling us that the Chinese Premier has a different view of what, for example, the US Government has deemed as genocide, as though this were a question of interpretation rather than of fundamental human rights. These are not just things that are said in the media. This is not fake news or a question of different interpretations; it is a question of whether the violation of human rights should be taken at least as seriously as a trade deal.

A 2022 United Nations report by the then UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, accused the People's Republic of China of committing serious human rights abuses against its Uyghur population and other minority groups. Will the Tánaiste use the word "condemn"? I do not hear it. I do not want to fall out with the proponents of this motion because it is good insofar as it goes, but I remind them that when I and others tabled a similar motion not that long ago we called on the Government to use its diplomatic and trade channels to put pressure on China. That is not in this motion. I got pushback from the Government at the time because I was encouraged to get rid of the idea that the trade channels should be involved. That is the danger of the nod to rights but wink to trade approach.

Despite the arbitrary detention, widespread torture, sexual violence, forced abortions and forced sterilisation of Uyghur women, the forced labour, and all that is going on, we do not get the language of condemnation from our Government. Yet, we claim to be putting human rights at the heart of domestic foreign policy. We claim to celebrate the UN Declaration of Human Rights, but in the face of one of the most serious human rights abuses of our time we welcome the perpetrator with red carpets and open arms. We delight in the win-win narratives of opportunity and co-operation, but for both sides to win here, we cannot have the Dublin Airport Authority wetting itself with enthusiasm on social media about the big aeroplane on the tarmac. That is not the way we normally welcome the abusers of human rights - the destroyers of human life and dignity. For both sides to win here, human rights cannot be taken off the table and the Uyghurs and their culture deemed ultimately disposable.

I urge the Tánaiste to listen to people like Dr. David O'Brien, whose dad comes from my parish of Ahascragh, County Galway. He is a fantastic academic doing great work to highlight the plight of the Uyghur people, and he has personal experience of living among them. He is appalled at the lack of performance of the Irish Government.

We are important to China. We have TikTok, Huawei and other Chinese companies with close connections to the Chinese Communist Party employing ever greater numbers here. The Irish Council for Civil Liberties, ICCL, wrote last year to the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission, the Office of Public Works and political party leaders to raise urgent concerns about the use of HIKVision surveillance cameras in Leinster House and Government Buildings. The company, HIKVision, has been shown to provide facial recognition technology used in the surveillance and repression of the Uyghurs. The surveillance system operated by HIKVision targets them based on racial attributes and flags them for detention at mass internment camps. The Chinese Communist Party is a controlling stakeholder in HIKVision and investigations have discovered their devices reporting back to China, yet despite these concerns, nothing was done.