Richard Boyd Barrett Condemns Strip-Searches of Mother's Day Protesters

The world is divided into three blocks and governments tell people to live in fear of the others all the time in order to justify increasing authoritarianism, more expenditure on arms and weapons, while working people are kept down and denied the money that is going into weapons and arms, which should be going into health, education and housing. Because that's what's going on, project fear and the Irish government are trying to pull us into it. But I wonder, has this sort of hysteria and fear mongering now descended to the strip searching of peaceful women protesters outside Dáil Éireann, the group Mothers Against Genocide, on a Mother's Day protest to show solidarity with women and children in Palestine, in Lebanon and so on, who have been slaughtered over the last 18 months and have a sit down protest, a peaceful sit down protest and then are arrested very, very violently in some cases, in some cases including Palestinian and Lebanese people who have actually suffered the horrors of the last 18 months. And some then are strip searched, I mean to read you one description, I was stripped completely naked and was asked to remove my underwear. When I questioned the necessity of this I was told I would be forced violently if I didn't comply, and that they didn't want any trouble. After removing my underwear they looked inside my private areas and touched all my sensitive parts. It was absolutely disgusting. These were peaceful women protesters on a Mother's Day protest. Now, do you condone that kind of treatment of people who were a threat to nobody? They're certainly not a threat, you know, it's absolutely outrageous behaviour. Do you condemn that? And is that where we're heading? Is that the sort of society, Taoiseach, we're heading? And they were protesting about our continued complicity with the genocide because of US troops in Shannon, Israeli war bonds being sold and the failure to impose sanctions on Israel. I'll just make a fundamental point that the establishment of this National Security Council is about creating a proper structure to ensure democratic accountability in terms of national security matters. Proper coordination between all government departments and between Angola Shekana, the defence forces. So as Taoiseach, I'll chair it, the Minister for Justice and the Minister for Foreign Affairs. And that's at a high level in terms of the national security threats that face the country. Confidentiality is very, very important in terms of the conduct of national security threats and how we respond. And in time I would like to see some discussion with the Oireachtas in terms of an Oireachtas role, but it would have to be predicated on confidentiality in terms of our engagement with Angola Shekana or with the defence forces. We don't have a tradition of that in our political system. But given the nature of modern threats, and it's not project fear, Deputy Boye Barrett, Russia did invade Ukraine, by the way, just it's a fact, it's not project fear, it happened. And that act alone has changed the entire mindset around Europe in respect of security. It's applied to the decision of the US to make it very clear that its role is changing in terms of being the ultimate security guarantor of the Western Hemisphere. And therefore Europe does have to seriously look at how exposed it is to any future aggression. And there are EU member states, whether you like it or not, or others might not like it, but it's a reality, they see it as existential. These are states that formerly experienced the brutality and the repression of the Soviet Empire. I'm speaking of Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia. They don't want to ever again be under the rule of a jackboot regime that suppresses civil rights, civil expression, political expression, and that if you speak out, you're put into a jail straight away. They don't want that. So, it's not project fear. It's a bit too simplistic in terms of what's going on. And in some respects, we're seeing a growth in autocracy across the world with similar methodologies and similar approaches to international relations. So, we do actually have to protect both our own democratic structures, as Deputy O'Sullivan has said, and the Electoral Commission is working on that. We also have to protect, as Deputy Moynihan said, our economic infrastructure and our energy infrastructure, because modern methods of disruption, warfare doesn't have to be waged conventionally. They can be done through cyber, to devastating effects, as we found out during the attack on the health service during COVID-19, and it was devastating. On the maritime front, which has been raised, I think, with Deputy Byrne as well, Malcolm Byrne has a number of issues, the subsea cables, the energy interconnectors are very important. The decision of a national gas reserve is a security decision. It's an energy security decision, whereby if anything happened, or interconnectors, we do need backup to keep the Irish economy going and to keep the lights on, basically, in households and in industry. And it's an expensive thing to have to do, but we have to do it. I believe it would be irresponsible to take a chance in respect of that. In terms of Mothers Against Genocide protest, there's absolutely no issue with protest. None whatsoever. My understanding is, and I'm informed of following engagement with a number of protesters, who are blocking the entrance to Doyle-Irden. I think we all saw that. Why does that have to happen? You can protest on the left-hand side. You can protest on the right-hand side. You can protest across the road. You don't have to. You don't have to protest at all, because we had a previous protest in the previous time, a year or two ago, which were quite violent. I'm not saying, sorry, I'm not saying what it was against genocide or being that. They're not. But everybody in this house railed against the Gardaí for not having operational procedures to keep access and egress from Leinster House available. Sorry, through the chair, I haven't interrupted. I just want to make a bit. But you don't have to block the gates of Leinster House. Fine. No, what happened then was, the Gardaí gave a direction under the Public Order Act. Okay? That's what the Gardaí formally did. No physical engagement. Just gave a direction. These individuals, it says, were given a period of time to adhere. They were given time to adhere to the direction. The direction was not complied with, and a number of people were arrested then for offences contrary to the Criminal Justice Public Order Act. Eleven people were arrested under Section 8 of the Public Order Act, and all 11 have received adult cautions. And additionally, three people were also arrested for alleged offences under Section 6, threatening abuse of or insulting behaviour in a public place. Nine, willful obstruction. And 19, assault of obstruction of a peace officer. Now, I will follow up with the Minister of Justice in terms of the assertions and the allegations that have been made today in the House. I don't have any background to that, but I will follow it up, because I would not understand the necessity for any strip searching or whatever. But I will follow that up. But I will again make the point. The deputies use the phrase again, which they use with abandon, where they accuse people of complicity and genocide. Now, that is a horrible, it's a great old slogan, but actually it's a horrible assertion. Through the chair. I just want to make a point that that is a horrible assertion. It's a demonstrably false assertion. And again, misreading, absolutely wrong. And it shouldn't be made. Because you complain, deputies complain from time to time about what assertions made about them and others. That is a very fundamentally wrong. And it speaks to a kind of philosophy that's really in a mindset. It's about how can we blame the Irish government or the Irish parliamentarians for what's going on in Gaza, not the Israeli government. Your approach always seems to be, let's blame the Irish government, not where the fault lies. And you're attempting to drive a wedge between the Irish people and the Irish public representatives who are not of your persuasion. The next.