Dáil business committee sidelines tributes to Fidel Castro

Sinn Féin TD Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin has questioned why a proposal to allow time in the Dáil for tributes to former Cuban president Fidel Castro was subsequently deleted from the agenda for the week.

Mr Ó Caoláin said in the Dáil on Tuesday that the proposal appeared on the first draft of the Dáil’s business committee but was subsequently deleted.

Government Chief Whip Regina Doherty suggested the issue should be considered by the business committee at its meeting on Thursday.

But Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said the protocols and precedents for dealing with the deaths of former leaders should be checked first.

“We can’t make it up on a whim,” he said.

Mr Ó Caoláin said it was a day for recognising the contribution of Mr Castro to the development of Cuba and internationally,.

“I would make an appeal that we would not let the day go,” he said. “I hope it’s only to do with technical arrangements” that the tributes were withdrawn from the agenda.

Criticism

Mr Ó Caoláin described the former president as a “figure of major international importance and a friend of Ireland”. Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams is travelling to Cuba for the funeral.

The issue follows criticism by some politicians and human rights activists of President Michael D Higgins for his remarks following Mr Castro’s death.

The President praised Cuba’s literacy rates, health service and economic growth. Mr Higgins also said he was a “giant among global leaders whose view was not only one of freedom for his people, but for all of the oppressed and excluded peoples on the planet”.

Rejecting the criticism a spokesman for Mr Higgins said the President’s statement had clearly referred to the price paid for social and economic development in terms of civil society and the criticisms it brought.