Irish Citizens tortured by USA ICE in Texas | "detainees gamble on who will take their own life next" (YouTube video of Ceisteanna o Cheannairl Freasúra)

Speaker is Nina Black... I think I got her name right? Ceisteanna o Cheannairl Freasúra - opposition party.

Transcript:

"I raise the case of Seamus Culleton, the Irish citizen and Kilkenny man who has now spent five months imprisoned in an ICE detention camp in Texas. Yesterday, the country was silenced, listening in as Seamus phoned "Liveline" to speak about his ordeal. Last night, I spoke directly to Seamus's sister Caroline and heard more details about the appalling conditions in which he is detained. There are 72 men packed into a single tent, with filth everywhere and a lack of sanitation, violent guards, alleged strangling, three men dead already, and conditions so brutal that detainees are gambling on who will be the next person to take their own life. They are deprived of fresh air. Seamus has seen the sun only a handful of times in his five months there. He calls it a hell and a concentration camp and he fears for his life.

Seamus is a man who has lived in the US for 17 years. He runs a successful business in Boston and married his American wife, Tiffany Smyth, last April. However, he has now spent more than half of his married life behind barbed wire in this camp. Why? Because he was lifted off the streets by ICE on his way to the shops after he had been kept waiting for his green card following long delays. As Caroline said, it is deeply ironic that one arm of the US Government is processing him for permanent residency while the other has locked him in a cage. To describe his testimony as shocking would be an understatement. It appears beyond doubt to breach American commitments under the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

What is the Irish Government doing about this? On his way to Cabinet today, the Taoiseach told the media his officials had contacted Washington. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, has said that consular assistance is being offered, yet I understand that no Government Minister has contacted the family directly. This is an Irish citizen about whose plight the Government has known for some time. Reports of his treatment hit the press days ago with Karlin Lillington's piece in The Irish Times. The Taoiseach must commit now, on the floor of the Dáil, to pulling out every stop and using every diplomatic lever at his disposal to secure Mr. Culleton's release. There can be no delays and no waiting for St. Patrick's Day.

Unfortunately, Mr. Culleton's is not an isolated case. Parliamentary questions from my Labour Party colleague Deputy Duncan Smith reveal that the number of deportations of Irish citizens from the US has quadrupled in a year. We have all read articles about the detention of innocent people like Donna Hughes-Brown, a grandmother who has lived in the US legally since she was 11 years old. Immigration lawyers in America tell us Irish citizens are watching the news and fearing for their own futures. We do not know if any more Irish citizens have been detained in the same manner as Mr. Culleton. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, says it is fewer than 12. Is it 10? Is it 11? In five, weeks, the Taoiseach plans to hand a bowl of shamrock to the man responsible for all this. He plans to offer a symbol of friendship to the man who humiliated Ireland on St. Patrick's Day last year when he snubbed the Taoiseach in favour of a photo op with Conor McGregor. The Taoiseach knows the expression, "with friends like these", what will he do today to ensure the release of Seamus Culleton and to ensure the safety of other Irish citizens being detained by ICE or in fear of being detained by it?"