Fine Gael spokesman on Foreign Affairs, Deputy Jim O'Keeffe in Havana last week with Carlos Annador, President of La Lisa Municipal (left). O'Keeffe and Oireachtas colleagues Ben Briscoe and Madeleine Taylor-Quinn looked at the effect of the US trade embargo and, says O'Keeffe, believe it should be discontinued immediately.
"It is utterly wrong that relations with an independent sovereign country should be dictated by internal politics." Ireland, he said, should develop closer links with Cuba, since the two countries had a lot in common and both had a major power next door.
Cuba was a communist regime, one of the last in the world, so while the health and education services were good, the people suffered some denial of basic human and civil rights. He urged the EU to get involved in ending the isolation, and welcomed the arrival shortly of the first Cuban ambassador to Ireland, Teresita Trujillo Hernandez, whom the trio met.
