Miriam Lord’s Week: Jetsetting Senators risk the wrath of China over Taiwan

It’s been a busy week for Senators Barry Ward (FG) and Malcolm Byrne (FF) who went from the dizzy heights of their party think-ins in Kilkenny and Mullingar to the dreary conference halls of Washington DC for this year’s Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (Ipac) summit.

The alliance is a cross-party global coalition of legislators working to reform how democratic countries approach China. Senators Ward and Byrne are co-chairs of the Oireachtas Ipac group, and they joined about 60 legislators from 30 member countries to discuss issues such as human rights abuses against the Uyghur population, the situation in Hong Kong and China’s ongoing aggression towards Taiwan.

Members of the group include US senators Marco Rubio and Bob Menendez, former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, former prime minister of Belgium Guy Verhofstadt as well as Japan’s former defence minister Gen Nakatani.

Ireland, like many countries, has an interesting relationship with Taiwan. Diplomatic ties are not officially maintained, but there are trade, social and cultural links between the two countries. The Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Society has been going strong for years and events hosted by the island’s representative office here are always well attended. The food, we hear, is always excellent. There have been trips by Oireachtas members to Taiwan.

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Senior Government politicians give these occasions a wide berth, but when administrations change or office-holders get the heave-ho, the same politicians have no qualms about turning up at the soirées. A controversial request from the Ceann Comhairle in 2018 warning TDs and senators against “active engagement” with the Taiwanese because it might offend “our Chinese friends” went down like a lead balloon at the time.

The most controversial part of this week’s summit was a reception held for the visiting legislators in the residence of Taiwan’s de facto ambassador in Washington, Hsiao Bi-khim. It was the largest-ever gathering of international parliamentarians expressing solidarity with Taiwan, and the word in DC diplomatic circles was that the Chinese were furious about it.

“Taiwan is a big focus for Ipac because it could be a future flashpoint,” Senator Ward told us after he returned home on Friday. He said that he wasn’t personally informed of any displeasure on China’s part, but delegates were nonetheless aware that Beijing is not amused.

“The unannounced gathering of about 60 parliamentarians from Europe, Asia and Africa at Taiwan’s sweeping hilltop diplomatic mansion in Washington — called Twin Oaks — is the latest move in Taipei’s efforts to persuade fellow democracies to stand against China since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine heightened concerns that Beijing could attempt to take the island by force,” reported Reuters.

Taiwan’s government strongly rejects China’s sovereignty claims. “It is important to demonstrate to the bully that we have friends too,” Hsiao told guests from countries such as Australia, Britain, Canada, India, Japan, Lithuania, the Netherlands and New Zealand. She also welcomed two representatives from Ukraine.

“We are not seeking to provoke the bully, but neither will we bow to their pressure,” she said.

Politico’s China Watcher piece was headed: “Visiting foreign lawmakers gang up on China.”

Siteserv report is yet another sickener

Great to see Justine McCarthy’s first column in The Irish Times this week. A superb debut, naturally.

With the death of Queen Elizabeth and the annual torrent of think-in soundbites dominating the news, the recent release of the report on the sale of Siteserv in 2012 did not get the space it might have otherwise. Thankfully, Justine got stuck in on Friday because some of the detail in the report (which only took seven years to produce and cost many more millions than the amount originally under investigation) is hard to stomach.

Because despite all the promises about cleaning up Dodge after a greedy, profligate and witless set of untouchable know-alls bankrupted this country and ruined countless lives, we find ourselves with another report, another tale of happy coincidences, long phone calls and large finder fees.

Another sickener.

The phrase “tainted with impropriety” is used 44 times in the report, for what it’s worth.

The findings are “a cause of concern” said the Taoiseach in a hard-hitting and damning indictment of nothing in particular.

The Dáil debated the report on Wednesday. So we can move on now.

Billionaire Denis O’Brien — one of his companies purchased Siteserv — was cleared in the report of any wrongdoing or impropriety concerning the transaction.

People Before Profit’s Bríd Smith felt moved to quote a tweet “from the renowned Mr Vincent Browne”.

“Isn’t it unfortunate for Denis O’Brien that so many of his involvements result in controversy: the award of the Irish mobile phone licence; INM; Digicel; Beacon Hospital over vaccines; and now Siteserve. Perhaps it has all to do just with poor communications.”

Anyway, welcome Justine.

TDs’ kids suffering from ‘political exposure’

Fianna Fáil’s Cathal Crowe made an interesting contribution to the debate on the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation commission of investigation report, although it was very brave of him to repeatedly state at the outset that he hadn’t actually read it. He had, however, seen a summary and read media reports.

Cathal was flabbergasted at the amount of time it took to finish it — “absolutely astounding”. However, he recognised that tribunals of investigation “are hugely important in terms of providing transparency, identifying corruption where it has happened and uncovering how it has manifested itself”. It’s just, why do they have to take so long?

He hopes that at least they have cleaned up the body politic “and how the State, big business, banks and everyone does their business”. (Not if the latest report is anything to go by.)

But this heightened level of scrutiny comes at a cost to politicians and, in particular, their families. The TD for Clare explained that any TD, senator or member of a local authority is considered to be “politically exposed” from a banking and financial point of view. This also extends to family members. If one of their children wants to raise a loan for college or to buy their first car, maybe “a clapped-out Ford Fiesta” or something, it can take eight months to get the loan processed.

Deputy Crowe acknowledged that, over the years, some TDs abused their position and some were found out. But the vast majority are doing the job to the best of their ability in the full glare of the media and with oversight from Sipo.

“I cannot fathom why the son, daughter, niece or nephew of a county councillor in west Clare, Roscommon, Mayo or Dublin is considered to be politically exposed and can’t go off and raise a simple, basic loan at the start of the 2022-23 academic year. It’s wrong. It’s bonkers.”

He agrees politicians should and must be fully accountable. Maybe their fobbing-in system for clocking into work could be looked at again, for example. “Maybe there is lots of stuff we need to do here but good Lord, you’d want to be living like an altar boy, leading a life of absolute purity with white smoke coming from the chimney of your house to have any chance of sitting in a seat here and representing your constituency.”

By all means put the politicians under the lens, “but not our sons, daughters, in-laws, nieces and nephews. I haven’t even told my in-laws that they are politically exposed but the bank will tell them when they go down, and that’s wrong. That is absolutely wrong. Someone needs to stop the madness.”

At least the in-laws know now, Cathal.

The Fianna Fáil backbencher struck a chord.

The Ceann Comhairle waded in with his own story. “My own 25-year-old daughter was refused the opportunity to buy a savings product with a reputable savings agency because she was considered to be politically exposed. You can imagine how an adult child feels about his or her parent when that sort of thing happens.”

Keeping Paschal in his prestigious place

Don’t know about you, but we’re sick with the worry over whether poor Paschal will keep his position as chief bottlewasher of the prestigious Eurogroup club of EU finance ministers, because without him at the helm the country will probably implode. His presence at the top table in the last couple of years has been the difference between this country getting special treatment from Europe and…

Oh, wait. Never mind.

But there is no doubt that Paschal Donohoe is very well got among his continental colleagues and, as our Europe Correspondent Naomi O’Leary reported this week, he has an excellent working relationship with European Central Bank chief Christine Lagarde and the former Italian prime minister and economy commissioner Paolo Gentiloni.

She wrote: “As the three stood side by side, Mr Gentiloni essentially endorsed Mr Donohoe as president publicly in the press conference following last week’s Eurogroup meeting in Prague. ‘Thank you, Paschal, for your words and your activity, because we need I think very strongly the role of the Eurogroup and your leadership in these difficult coming months,’ he said.”

At least the rapidly approaching budget, along with composing his erudite book reviews in the Saturday pages of this newspaper, should help take Paschal’s mind off the Eurogroup conundrum: how can he stay put in Europe when Fianna Fáil’s Michael McGrath takes over as minister for finance in December? If a compromise can be found, it probably makes sense to keep him in this high-profile position, if only to keep peripheral Ireland’s flag flying in European finance’s inner circle.

But Fine Gael’s unsubtle if not downright cheeky campaign to Preserve Paschal’s Place, regardless of what Michael McGrath might think, has been an unedifying feature of the new political season.

In the meantime, grassroots darling Donohoe will be in Limerick next Saturday to host Fine Gael’s first-ever Small Business & Enterprise conference.

He will be joined in Thomond Park by the party leader and Tánaiste, Leo Varadkar, EU commissioner Mairead McGuinness and Ministers Heather Humphreys and Simon Harris. Guests from the business world will include Helen O’Donnell of Dolmen Catering, Pierce Dargan of Equine MediRecord and Pat Rigney of Drumshanbo Gunpowder Gin, which has just been nominated for spirit of the year in Wine Enthusiast magazine’s annual Wine Star Awards in the United States.

Alan Cantwell, former news anchor with TV3 and a former Fine Gael adviser, will be MC for the afternoon.