British-Irish Co-operation
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-24
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

It was young women as well, and children. The Deputy does not have a monopoly of horror on what happened. I will simply say that the law must take its course. There should be thorough and comprehensive investigations before we arrive at conclusions in terms of anyone else named in that. That is what is happening in the United Kingdom, although it is on a different issue in terms of material that emerged in respect of the former Prince Andrew and the former UK ambassador to the US and former Minister, Peter Mandelson, who have been arrested. It is a matter for the police forces to pursue that. In our view, that is what has to happen. There is no doubt that people are shocked about what has been revealed. There are more files to be revealed. The sooner that they are released in a wholly transparent manner the better.
Regarding Deputy Murphy's case, in many ways what that reveals too are the checks and balances within every political system and democracies. The authoritarian governments have been long established. There is increasing authoritarianism. In the United Kingdom, the Supreme Court ruled, so the checks and balances worked at the end of the day. That does not happen in every other country. There is a growth and increase in authoritarianism in countries like Hungary, Russia, Belarus and some African countries including the Sahel, where Russia has intervened and established essentially puppet governments. There have been coups d'état in these places, getting rid of democratically elected governments. The increase in authoritarianism is a worry.
Deputy McGreehan point was very interesting even though she did not get enough time to elaborate on it. I refer her to a shared island initiative called Shared Home Place.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-24/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:40+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-24