Senator Gerard P Craughwell - speech from 27 Nov 2019

I would be extremely happy if the leader could explain to me how the citizens of Ireland are going to benefit from this seat we're chasing at the United Nations Security Council. As of September this year we had spent 650,000 euros, 100,000 of which was spent on a video using Bono to sell the notion that Ireland might have a seat on the United Nations Security Council. Recently we've spent another 144,000 sending ministers to the United States to further the cause of the United Nations Security Council. This is nothing but a vanity project. It serves no citizens in this country in any way. It does nothing for the hard-pressed citizens of this country. Absolutely nothing and it's time it stopped. It's time that we stepped back and started to use the offices of ministers etc to do the jobs they're in power to do. This morning we see we cannot get into Leinster House without using ID cards and we see up at the top of the town tractors, farmers taken from their farms. And I have to say there's a level of poverty there which is unbelievable. Somebody remarked to me this morning that there can't be much poverty, look at the size of the tractors. The truth of the matter is the banks are the tractors. These men and women are up there and they are in dire straits. Leader, you know that there is a market of 80 million people waiting in Iran to buy Irish lamb and Irish beef and the only impediment to opening up that market is that we have no embassy in Tehran. Why have we no embassy in Tehran? I know there are problems in the country. I know that the country has its problems and indeed the Irish ambassador from Iran will admit there are problems in his country. But there's a market there for Irish beef and my colleagues here this morning were talking about the price of Irish beef being down to 330 a kilo. My good God tonight are we going to drive our farmers out of business. It's simply not good enough. So on the one hand we're off chasing vanity projects. On the other hand we're allowing the people who are the heart and soul of this country, the farmers, we're not looking after them. So I want somebody to explain to the members of this house what good this goddamn vanity project that we're chasing is going to do and how it will benefit any citizen in this island. Whether they're homeless, whether they're farmers, whether they're lying on trolleys, it's helped nobody. Thank you Senator. Senator Neill are done.