Cabinet Committees
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-13
============================================================

Ruth Coppinger (PBP), Dublin West

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." That is from Orwell's 1984 . I am wondering if that is what happened with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in relation to what Donald Trump is doing in general, and has done in Venezuela. On Truth Social, he announced that he is now the de facto leader of Venezuela. They swooped in, kidnapped a leader and his wife, by the way, killing 130 people in the process, which the Taoiseach seems to have been silent on.
The Minister for foreign affairs put out a statement that the fate of Greenland should be decided by Greenland but the Government does not seem to apply that to Venezuela, and we seem to be selective about who is dictator. The Government announced sanctions against Iran but none against Israel, which has been carrying out a genocide for over two years.
This lickspittle boot-licking subservience to US and western imperialism is not going to do the Taoiseach any good. It has not worked for Machado trying to hand her Noble prize back and it will not work for the Taoiseach either.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-13/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:30+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-13