Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 24 Mar 1981

Vol. 327 No. 12

Private Members' Business. - Rugby Tour of South Africa: Motion.

Mr. Quinn

I move:

That Dáil Éireann aware of the continuance of the repression practised by the racist South African regime and of the evil nature of the apartheid system, which extends into the world of sport, deplores the decision of the Irish Rugby Football Union to send an Irish national touring team to the Republic of South Africa; calls upon the IRFU to reverse that decision in the interests of justice and of Ireland's international reputation, and calls upon the Government to take steps to introduce an immediate and effective boycott on all commercial and trading links with South Africa.

The House will be aware that this motion has been on the Order Paper since we resumed after Christmas. We deliberately did not move it hoping that the IRFU would take heed of it and would respond to the wishes not just of the Oireachtas but of the Irish people. The motion has been moved as close as possible to 21 March, which is renowned as Sharpeville Day, the 21st anniversity of the massacre of South African workers by the white police in Sharpeville on 21 March 1960. In the past this House debated resolutions condemning apartheid but the argument that will ensue in relation to the tour and the question of sanctions requires us to put again on the record the definition of apartheid and our condemnation of it. I will quote from a document published by Trocaire, the Catholic agency for world development, which describes apartheid.

The apartheid system of government decrees that the different racial groups should, as far as possible, be kept apart from each other. In practice this means one set of laws for the whites who rule the country and another set for the Africans and other coloured communities. The laws governing White South Africans have been passed by an all-white parliament and are designed to safeguard and promote white wealth and privilege. The per capita income of whites in 1975, according to a UN report, was $4,200: that of Africans in the same year was $245. Laws governing Africans and others have been passed by the same parliament without consulting those affected and designed to ensure that non-Whites will never have an effective voice in the political, economic and social life of the country.

No country other than South Africa effects such a comprehensive and systematic policy of legal repression and denial of human rights. Many countries infringe upon human rights to a greater or lesser extent, but no other country discriminates exclusively against individuals only upon their race and colour. In the start of the last 20 years of the twentieth century no other internal domestic policy constitutes such a moral outrage to the international community and no other country's internal policy constitutes such a unique danger to world peace.

This argument is not about the enjoyment of games of rugby in a sunny far away country. It is about giving support in whatever shape or form the people of white South Africa wish to obtain; it is about giving support to a regime which is fundamentally unjust and which by the continued perpetration of that injustice constitutes a major danger to world peace and security. We have seen how great powers became involved over the question of Afghanistan or El Salvador, countries with very limited strategic importance and with very little mineral or effective wealth. If the struggle for liberation in South Africa escalates much further and if the major powers are drawn into it, as they have been drawn into other such struggles for liberation, surely this House will realise that the danger to world peace centred around super power involvement in South Africa would be enormous.

This is fundamentally a moral issue, because South Africa is unique among all the countries in the UN. It is also an issue about peace because the failure of the world in general, and particularly the failure of the western world, who have the greater responsibility for what is happening in South Africa, can only put at risk what is now increasingly a tenuous system of world peace. It may sound harsh to put that sort of responsibility onto the executive of the IRFU and it may appear to the 26 players and officials who will travel with them to play the seven football matches a distortion beyond all bounds of credibility. The Labour Party had hoped that it would not be necessary to move this motion here and that the decision of the IRFU over the weekend would have made it redundant. We had hoped that the executive would listen to the considerable representations made by the Government. In replies to questions from me and other Deputies on 28 January last the House warmly congratulated the Minister for Foreign Affairs on his consistent opposition to this tour and on his representations to the IRFU. We have brought this motion to the floor of the House because of the failure of the Minister to convince the IRFU of the danger of this tour. We hope at the end of our two day debate, when we have reached an unanimous decision, that the House will urge the Taoiseach to intervene and to make a last perhaps desperate but, we hope, successful appeal to the executive of the IRFU, and to point out the dangers that the tour will have for our international reputation abroad because it will further extend and support the system of apartheid in South Africa. Nobody in this House would disagree with the first section of our resolution in relation to the tour.

In this country we have three national football games and the commitment, energy and enthusiasm of support tends to be spread across all three. That is not the situation in white South Africa. Support and enthusiasm for rugby verges on a religion among some of the white South Africans. Whether the IRFU like it or not, it is also the single most important link that we have with the Republic of South Africa. Our trading links are so miniscule in terms of volume that they are not listed in the United Nations statistics. Later I will return to the breakdown in detail of those links.

Very few of the nations of the world play rugby with South Africa. We happen to be one of those nations. The white racist minority in South Africa values highly the game of rugby and values extremely highly the continued links between this country and South Africa. Whether the IRFU wish it to be so or not, it is an effective lever. It is not a lever of their creation, but it remains an effective lever. They can choose to use that lever in support of the continuation of an apartheid regime, or as a non-violent means of dismantling and undermining it and bringing it into line with the other nations of the world in terms of racial equality at least.

That is the choice facing the IRFU. They have refused to accept that choice. In their long and detailed statement, published in the newspapers after 3 January when they made their decision, they attempted to say that politics had nothing to do with sport and, at the same time, that the South African Rugby Board had made great strides in relation to the integration of blacks and coloureds into the white dominated system and that, therefore, continuing to play rugby with the SARB would further benefit the social emancipation of blacks and coloureds in South Africa.

They cannot have it both ways. Either rugby and politics are totally separate or they are not. If the IRFU wish to argue, as they appear to wish to argue in their statement, that their continued link with the SARB has brought about some liberalisation in the interpretation by that organisation and that government of the system of apartheid, they are accepting a political role for rugby tours. That is what they have published. Having accepted that political role for the rugby tour — and it is in their own printed statement — and since they have entered into the realm of politics and social justice, they must listen to the overwhelming condemnation of virtually every conceivable organisation in Ireland who are opposed to the Irish tour in southern Africa.

With the indulgence of the House I should like to read onto the record the range of organisations who have formally and officially come out against that tour. I am quoting from the "Sharpeville Day Commemorative Declaration on the '81 Rugby Tour" issued by the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement. On page 2 they list the organisations and there are over 100 of them. The range is as follows: The Irish Government and the following political parties: Fianna Fáil, the SDLP, Fine Gael, Labour, the Socialist Labour Party, the IRSP, the People's Democracy, the NILP, the Communist Party of Ireland, Sinn Féin the Worker's Party and Sinn Féin. It goes on to the churches and lists the board of the Presbyterian Church, the Southern Region of the Methodist Church, the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace, which as we know is the Catholic Church, Trocaire, the Irish Missionary Union, the Dublin Quaker Peace Committee, the Dublin and Munster Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church and the Major Conference of Irish Religious Superiors.

It goes on to the trade unions and lists the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and virtually every major union in the country, the Union of Students in Ireland and many individual student unions and college societies from universities and colleges all over Ireland. Then there is the Confederation of Non-Governmental Organisations for Overseas Development made up of 19 development and aid bodies, the Belfast Humanist Group, the Ulster Community Action Group, the Northern Ireland Women's Rights Group, the Northern Ireland Association for Peace and Detente, the Labour Women's National Council, Conradh na Gaeilge. It then goes on to sports associations. The Irish Racquetball Association, a number of rugby clubs including St. Mary's, Skerries, Birr, Maynooth and Dublin University, and the Leinster and Connacht schools branches of the IRFU.

Literally the list goes on and on, some people outraged by the possibility that a team of rugby players bearing the Irish emblem and carrying the name of being an Irish representative side should represent in a most extended way any Irish citizen in a country which perpetrates injustice in a comprehensive fashion which makes it unique among the nations of the world.

There are others such as the Irish Missionary Union who have detailed knowledge of the extent of the repression and denial of human rights on the ground in the Republic of South Africa or in some of the neighbouring States and have first-hand experience of how important this tour is to the white racist regime and how repressive the regime is which they operate. There are others such as the Department with their own expertise, knowledge and understanding through their diplomatic contacts of the damage that will be done to this country around the world in countries where they think that a national team cannot be other than officially and formally representative of the wishes and will of the Government.

If for that reason only, it is important that this House should support this resolution unanimously to enable our diplomats overseas to attempt to undo some of the damage which will be undoubtedly done if the IRFU persist in ignoring the plea of an elected Parliament and all its Members and all the parties represented here. To conclude this section on the effectiveness of the tour, there is no doubt that it has become a political lever. Whether or not they wish to accept it, on any logical interpretation of their statement there is no doubt that the IRFU recognise the political leverage of rugby tours.

While a certain shift has been made in southern Africa in relation to the relaxation of the interpretation of the separationist and apartheid laws, in the main they have been cosmetic and they have been rejected by all the organisations who have a detailed knowledge of southern Africa. The participation by Irish sporting people in this tour, officials or sportsmen, will have damaging effects upon other sports and will do damage to the international sporting reputation of this country.

It is appropriate that this House should publicly recognise the stand taken by the four players who have refused on moral grounds to participate in this tour. It is a great honour to be picked to play for one's country irrespective of the sport. By general concensus a rugby tour in South Africa, or in Australia, or in New Zealand, is an exciting, enjoyable and fascinating experience. In human terms one can understand the attraction for any young player who is offered the opportunity to go on such a tour. To turn it down on moral grounds is an act of considerable self-denial and this House should publicly recognise that.

Mr. R. Ryan

Hear, hear.

Mr. Quinn

So far so good. We are all against the tour. The IRFU have spoken consistently to those of us who have opposed their participation in a tour in southern Africa. We have heard the plaintive cry: "We simply want to play rugby. We are not the only people to have contact with southern Africa. Why pick on us? Why not start with trade and commerce, the golfers and the motor car racers and all the others who have contacts with southern Africa? Why pick exclusively on the Irish rugby tour and the IRFU?" It is a valid argument. Unless this House addresses itself to it, our right to condemn exclusively the IRFU's tour of southern Africa is seriously undermined and invalidated. To that extent the Labour Party saw fit to include in this resolution the following final clause:

and calls upon the Government to take steps to introduce an immediate and effective boycott on all commercial and trading links with South Africa.

That will immediately raise fears in some people's minds, leave us open to certain charges, that we are being too extreme or too drastic, that it may have repercussions on the people in South Africa itself, that it may hurt the workers, that it may damage us more than it will South Africa. Therefore, is it the most effective way of achieving an objective in which all parties in this House share?

First of all, let us look at the extent of trade between this State and the Republic of South Africa. In reply to a parliamentary question posed by myself and Deputy O'Keeffe on 27 January last the Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach gave the volume of imports from South Africa and Namibia in 1979 — the year in respect of which there were the most up-to-date figures available — which amounted to £12.136 million, while the value of exports from this State to South Africa and Namibia amounted to £8.359 million. They are not substantial volumes of trade by any international statistics. As I said earlier, they are not even listed in the United Nations' assessment of the extent of South African trade with other countries. However, for the people directly involved in this economy, who derive a livelihood from trading with any country — particularly at a time when there are 130,000 unemployed — any kind of trade which provides employment must be viewed in a beneficial way. Therefore let us grasp the nettle and say that our motion calls on the Government to take steps to introduce an immediate and effective boycott on all commercial and trading links. What we want is the Government to assess how quickly we can inflict economic damage, social damage, cultural damage on the white racist regime of South Africa in order to bring it into compliance with United Nations resolutions.

The effect of the boycott is not to put Irish workers out of work. The effect of the boycott is not to deny cultural and sporting links to Irish personnel per se. The effect of the boycott should be designed, and we believe can be designed, further to isolate in a variety of ways the white racist South African regime so that hopefully it will begin to comply with all the United Nations' resolutions regarding the abolition of apartheid. I can hear already the counter argument to that which no doubt will be: well, since our trade is so insignificant that it is not even listed in United Nations' statistics, since our exports to South Africa can be replaced very readily, surely this will not have much effect; that really what we should be doing is looking for agreed international measures which collectively can bring real pressure on South Africa; and, until such time as we have got the international measures, we can go on gaily continuing to trade with South Africa — a bit like having one's cake and eating it.

In November 1962 the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution calling upon all member states to impose separate and collective sanctions against South Africa. That resolution said that the international community had come to appreciate that apartheid and racism in South Africa cannot be considered a local affair. However, that resolution and indeed numerous others has not had the desired effect. From 1959 to 1977 the amount of foreign investment in the white South African economy rose from 3 billion rands, approximately one and a half billion pounds, to a staggering 21 billion rands by 1977. This is where this country begins to get into the hot seat both in the United Nations Security Council and in the EEC. The bulk of that investment comes from our EEC partners. Two-thirds of the direct investment comes from EEC countries with nearly 50 per cent coming from the United Kingdom and one quarter from the USA. I note that those figures do not add up. I am quoting from a statement issued by the Anti-Apartheid Association. There are numerous multinational corporations which have direct investments in South Africa and which have increased those investments during the time that successive Governments have passed resolutions at the United Nations General Assembly and which, it would appear, blithely continue to increase their investment in South Africa and to trade very profitably because of the absolute abolition or repression of workers' rights there.

Until very recently the Irish Government — and certainly since 1973 when we joined the EEC — tended to adopt what can be described only as an attitude which resulted in our being in favour, in principle, of sanctions but finding arguments or reasons why we could not vote for them because of certain clauses or attachments to specific resolutions. Frequently we found ourselves abstaining on resolutions which in the main we felt compelled to support because of their inclusion of perhaps comment or support for arms struggle, or some other unacceptable aspect. Therefore we felt obliged to abstain on the entire resolution. I do not think we can adopt that sort of attitude any longer, for two reasons: first of all, the arms struggle it would appear, unfortunately, is becoming an inevitable fact, just as it did in Zimbabwe. Our abstention on such resolutions will not prevent it and, in all probability will precipitate its escalation.

Reverting to my earlier point about the pivotal and critical nature of the southern African Continent to world peace, western democracies, in particular a small, neutral State like ours, have a fundamental interest in ensuring that there is a rapid movement towards peace and racial justice in that State. It is for that reason that we have added the final clause to our resolution, a clause which we think the Government can now support fully. Indeed, in that context, we welcome the vote taken by the Government on 6 March at the United Nations General Assembly in relation to sanctions against the Republic of South Africa over their failure to implement various resolutions, in particular resolutions Nos. 435 and 385 on Namibia, when they voted for Draft Resolution L59 which effectively called for mandatory sanctions to be implemented by the Security Council, mandatory economic sanctions, including an oil embargo against South Africa.

As the House is probably aware, there is a mandatory arms sanction against South Africa, not that that affects this State. We welcome the fact that the Irish Government voted in favour of this resolution. Their vote is an indication of the strengthening of the attitude and the resolve of all parties in this House on the matter. It is significant that two other countries in the Ten, Greece and Denmark, voted with us and it is significant also that parallel to that, the Dutch, independently and singularly, are attempting to raise the campaign for an international oil embargo on South Africa. As we know, South Africa has no oil resources of her own. She is trying frantically to develop an alternative technology based on the conversion into oil of her substantial stocks of coal.

Mr. R. Ryan

And she is succeeding.

Mr. Quinn

As Deputy Ryan has pointed out, South Africa is succeeding in that development and is succeeding very quickly. Consequently, the time left for the international community to exercise this non-violent lever of sanction against white South Africa is rapidly running out. The conference I attended in Brussels on 31 December last and the follow-up conference in Amsterdam on 13 March indicated clearly that the time frame we are dealing with would indicate that within three to four years South Africa would have achieved a level of independence from external oil sources that will remove this lever from the western world and from the international community. Therefore, it is important that the Government are seen to act with a degree of alacrity and decision, positively taking the initiative, to spur on the larger international states, such as Germany and France, within the Community and particularly Britain who have such vested interests, financial and otherwise, in South Africa.

Sometimes this State — I am including this Government as well as the previous one — have been far too communitaire vis-à-vis the EEC. The EEC's record in relation to South Africa is not good. The Community's continued investment in and support of the economic base of South Africa, whether that involves access to uranium from Namibia or simply straightforward trade and commerce with the full State of South Africa, are enormous. We can no longer attempt to be good Europeans in the classic communantaire sense in the hope that the French, the British or the Germans will see things our way. We know that they will not see things our way. It is time that Ireland exercised her neutrality seriously, positively and constructively in relation to her role as one of the ten Member States of the Community, acting in concert with other small states such as Greece, Denmark and, obviously Holland, in trying to bring pressure to bear, by way of the powers of the EEC, by way of our position on the Security Council, to bring about an effective boycott of trade with South Africa. This is the one option that is clearly now on the table so far as the western world is concerned, and the western world has a very clear moral responsibility to South Africa. As the member of the Dutch Labour Party who has led the campaign for the oil embargo has said, all of the people of Holland consider themselves to have a particular moral responsibility for the African population living in Southern Africa. Because of that the Dutch political parties have attempted to lead a campaign in the Netherlands aimed at bringing about an oil embargo on South Africa, even if the other countries do not do likewise. There is one major multinational oil company based in Holland who have very substantial links with South Africa. I refer to Shell. With the exception of Greece, which is now a Member of the Ten, and if one includes also Denmark, we are the only country in the EEC who do not have a colonist record in Africa. We have a major potential influence in South Africa, an influence that could be used positively and constructively between the ACP countries on the one hand and the EEC, which is the largest single trading bloc in the world.

If Ireland has a role to play in the next ten years in what this party believe is the emerging international issue — and that issue will be the north-south divide between rich and poor on this globe as is so eloquently and clearly documented in the Brandt Report — our role in that secenario must be based on our history as a colony who won freedom, finally by way of arms struggle after reason, persuasion and pleas for help had ended. We know what economic development from a base of a colonial society is about. We are a country whose people are scattered around the world and we have dealt with the problems of living beside a large power. We have a large rural tradition and in our own living history we have the capacity to transfer the technology and the resources of trying to create an independent State coming out of colonialism. I use the word "colonialism" in its fullest sense, not just in terms of economic exploitation but of cultural and psychological exploitation which in many ways is as debilitating as the economic exploitation.

That unique position that we hold within the EEC gives us the potential for a unique, independent and neutral foreign policy that can be exercised constructively in the last 20 years of this century, but that unique position may be seriously endangered, if not totally undermined, if we do not exercise consciously now the moral choice of totally opposing this tour, of totally opposing the South African regime and of doing everything that can conceivably be done by a small State like ours to bring about that regime's early demise. It is not sufficient for us to proclaim our support for the abolition of apartheid. It is not sufficient for us to say that we are in favour of sanctions in principle. Twenty-one years after the massacre at Sharpeville it is essential that we are seen clearly by the African people in South Africa, in Zimbabwe, in Mosambique, in Botswana and in all the other frontline States, to put ourselves on the line even at some cost to ourselves, even if it results in heavy pressure being brought to bear on us from the US or British Government or from the Germans expressing their disapproval and their disappointment at the independent line we have taken.

By acting in this way we would be not only fighting against oppression and injustice in South Africa but we would be doing so at the specific request of the African National Congress, because Oliver Campbell came to this country and on meeting the then Foreign Minister, Mr. O'Kennedy, was given a clear assurance of support, a genuine assurance I believe. Has this country not been in that position in the past? Have our people not lived in New York and in Philadelphia? Are our history books not littered with details of journeys of Irish people to other countries in the search for international support when we were seeking our freedom? Did not Wolfe Tone go to Paris to plead on behalf of this country? Or is our memory so short that we cannot return to the barrel of history that which we so willingly took out during many years? Is this not a clear start for what is a unique moral choice? South Africa is the last racialist apartheid state in the world and if she is dismantled, hopefully by non-violent means, and with the help and leadership of a small state like ours, will we not have contributed to a wonderful conclusion of a chapter of human history — the abolition of racism on this globe?

In conclusion, I suspect because the Government have tabled an amendment to our resolution, that the last clause causes them some difficulty. I earnestly request them to consider the real importance that this resolution will have (a) in regard to the tour itself and (b) in regard to our relationship with the rest of the international community and particularly the Third World countries. I formally and hopefully call for unanimous support from the House for this motion.

Professor O'Donoghue

I move the amendment in the name of the Minister for Foreign Affairs:

To delete all words after "international reputation," and substitute the following:

"and supports the Government in their efforts, including the pursuit of internationally agreed measures, to influence South Africa to abandon its apartheid policies."

The Minister will speak in the debate tomorrow night and develop the case for this amendment. I have a few words to say myself on it and I should like to begin by emphasising that I think there is a very wide measure of agreement inside and outside the House that the proposed tour should not take place and that even at this late stage the Irish Rugby Football Union should reconsider their decision and decide to call off the tour.

I welcome the opportunity of contributing to the debate because I am one of the patrons of the anti-apartheid movement and I have had a number of people questioning me as to why we adopt this attitude and raising points that I think have been raised here and elsewhere such as: Why rugby? Why not other sports? Why not trade links, and also, Why South Africa? Why not other countries? And so on. I am quite happy for my own part to spell out some of the reasons underlying my attitude which I think is typical of the attitude of all parties in the House.

The first basic point is that South Africa is the state which quite clearly operates a racist policy, which deliberately sets out to organise its affairs on the basis of discriminating against some of its people, indeed the majority of its people because of their colour. While there are references to having policies for the separate development of the homelands, the lands for the black people, we all know that in practice these so-called separate development policies add up to arrangements which condemn the black population to poverty, which deny them access to the bulk of the rich, natural resources South Africa possesses and which therefore concentrate the bulk of the wealth and all the effective political power into the hands of a white minority which have clearly set their face so far against anything that could even remotely be termed fair, impartial, democratic, representative government. If one is confronted with this type of political system and one is given an opportunity to express one's view on it, of course it has to be anathema to anyone who claims to be a supporter of, or believer in republican principles. Certainly, as a very firm believer in the concept of republican, democratic government based on the expressed wishes of people I have no difficulty in finding myself totally opposed to these racist, apartheid policies.

If one is opposed then what does one do? Is it simply a question of recording your disagreement and dissent and doing no more about it, expressing perhaps very nobly in fine language one's abhorrence but not doing anything difficult or uncomfortable? This is where one has to consider the choice of means for promoting one's principles and beliefs. The basic choice is whether to press and work for change through peaceful means or whether to support some sort of violent struggle for liberation. We know too well from our own history, quite apart from the history of other people, that when reason and peaceful methods fail one may be driven to use violence but in the first instance it is surely the duty of all democratic people to want to avail of every opportunity to bring about change by peaceful means. That is why I think there should be a full, positive, wholehearted commitment to programmes such as the anti-apartheid programme to try to bring about the end of apartheid, bring about change and adequate recognition of the rights of the majority in South Africa and to achieve these results by peaceful means. That is why I support all non-violent methods for promoting change.

The question has already come up here — the point has certainly been made to me a number of times by rugby supporters: —"Why pick Rugby? Why not pick on other sports?" My answer is: "I will pick on other sports, any other sport in which this apartheid, racist principle is enshrined." I recall that other sporting events have been frowned upon and discouraged by Government action. But I would not want to go as far as some people have suggested in withdrawing passports or in other ways restricting the freedom of the individual to decide how he or she will act. Even though I oppose apartheid and want to see it ended as soon as possible if you believe in a fully democratic-functioning system you must try to give adequate rights to minorities to express dissent. The distinction I make is that a Government should do everything in its power to ensure that there is no official support, no financial aid, no facilities afforded to anybody participating in these activities, sporting or otherwise. I do not think one should restrict or in fact introduce in effect forms of repression on the behaviour of the individual, because once that road is embarked on there is always the danger that a democratic government, albeit with the best of intentions initially, will go along the road towards the kinds of repression and restriction of freedom which were the very evils they set out to oppose in the first instance.

We have to recognise that in a democracy we are not going to have unanimity, but what we should have is people who believe in a cause, who are willing to work for it, and who will try to persuade those who do not share their views initially to come round to recognising the force, correctness or merit of the arguments — in this case the argument for not remaining neutral, indifferent or passive towards actions such as the proposed rugby tour. That is one point I wish to emphasise.

It is worth developing this point even more. Many younger people are that much further removed from the period when we had only newly received our political freedom and could appreciate its value. With the passage of time there is a tendency to take these freedoms for granted. We have to bring home to people that democracy and freedom are very precious gifts which historically are not enjoyed by the majority of people and call for conscious, deliberate, continuous commitment to ensure that they are preserved and protected where they already exist and that they are extended to people who do not yet enjoy the privilege of living in a free democracy.

When rugby supporters ask me why I am dragging politics into sport I reply that I am not dragging politics into sport because, whether they like it or not, in the modern world sport, cultural and other so-called non-political activities are regularly, widely and freely used to promote, win support for and achieve identification with various political and social policies of different countries. We saw that approach developed and used very effectively in Europe in the twenties and thirties. We saw some of the evil consequences that could be associated with it, where young people were lured into accepting political doctrines because they had been attractively packaged and gift wrapped with apparently non-political sporting and cultural activities which could be noble, uplifting and improving in themselves.

Mr. Quinn

It sounds very like the manifesto.

Professor O'Donoghue

If the Deputy wants that kind of debate I will gladly have it another time. I am sure the Deputy will agree that this topic is one in which we ought to try to keep to the all-party agreement to the maximum extent possible. I would like to feel he too shares the sentiments I am expressing.

We cannot allow people to think it is unimportant or not political how they engage in their sporting activities or with whom they associate because, while they may genuinely believe that there is not such association, other people will make those associations for them. There is no point in imagining that these things are not happening in the modern world. We have to bring our people to a recognition of and acceptance that all activities, sporting, cultural and so on, can have political and social connotations and we have to eschew any naive hope of being able to remain indifferent or in some sense apart from the consequences of our behaviour in these areas. Because sport is, has been, and almost certainly will continue to be enmeshed in political activities, we should face up to this and recognise its implications.

Another point made is that we are selective in that we apply it to South Africa but not to other countries where there can be similar forms of discrimination and equal injustices or violations of human freedoms and human rights. My answer to that is that I am quite happy to oppose such violations wherever they occur and whatever the political flag under which they sail.

Many of us in this House have been consistent in our opposition to the actions of other countries when they infringed on the rights of people. In so far as they involved sporting activities, many of us recall the debates which centred around non-participation in the Moscow Olympics. I was opposed to the participation of our athletes in those games for precisely the same reasons I am enunciating now as to why I am opposed to the rugby tour to South Africa. Other people have been consistent in wanting to engage in sporting links, whether of the Moscow or South African tour varieties. But there are the inconsistent groups who appear to be somewhat selective in the kind of infringement of political freedoms with which they disagree and then express their disagreement through opposition to sporting, cultural or other peaceful links.

That to my mind is a perfectly valid reason why anyone who believes in a republican democratic form of government should want to oppose a team which will carry the name of an Irish team taking part in a tour of this nature, which will certainly be represented as implying some sort of friendship, if not outright support, for the policies of apartheid.

I want to take up the point, which is the substance of the amendment in the Minister's name and offer one or two views of my own on it. Deputy Quinn, in moving the Labour Party motion, argued that we should be willing to take up the question of trade and other links and to go as far as a complete boycott of activities with South Africa. Our amendment would not go that far. Deputy Quinn said that he could almost hear the counter-argument that the amount of trade between South Africa and Ireland was not of such a scale that it would make very much difference.

I do not want to use that part of the argument but I certainly want to make the case that a more valid way for us to press our case is to try to get some agreed international action against South Africa. Only if we can get a substantial number of South Africa's trading partners to participate in a programme can we envisage any meaningful results and a change in behaviour. Quite apart from looking for action of a negative kind in the sense of boycotting existing trade, another way in which to achieve results might be to switch the direction of some of the foreign investment which goes into South Africa. They should be told that if there is any substance to the claim that they genuinely wish to see separate development in the homelands then it must be ensured that these separate areas have adequate amounts of land and natural resources available to them. The free world could direct its investment to the black republics rather than the white republic. We would then see how far the policy of separate but allegedly equal development would proceed.

There is some scope for Ireland to act as a promoter of that type of action because we do not carry the burden of a colonial record and the accompanying suspicion regarding possible motivation. We are legitimately entitled to express clearly our history as a people who suffered the same forms of oppression and exclusion from access to our own natural resources. Clearly we have an affinity and can very readily understand the nature of the obstacles which the black people of South Africa must overcome if they are to achieve an adequate level of development.

I would not be happy to see Ireland attempt a unilateral embargo on trade with South Africa. The consequences of such action would be very unevenly distributed. While we can achieve fairly readily measures of agreement and expressions of general principle, it is very difficult to carry people in the detailed support of any programme when it comes to the practical consequences of paying the cost. If we were to cut off exports worth £8 million or more we would not easily find alternative markets for those exports. We do not have a shortage of goods for export; on the contrary, our problem is in finding sufficient markets abroad. We must accept that a consequence of cutting those exports to South Africa would be to cut off at least some jobs and to inflict unemployment and hardship on a selected minority of our people. I would be unhappy at that prospect in the short-term. There is a way in which at some later date we could overcome that problem.

We should look at the framework laid out when the national understanding was being promoted two years ago. Although it got off to a rather slow and difficult start I believe the ideas and the basis on which the national understanding was formulated have a continued relevance to coping with any of these awkward questions of sharing out either the beneficial consequences of growth and development or the painful consequences of costs and hardship. That framework provides for arriving at agreement with the parties involved, trade unions, employers and Government. I should like at an early date to see farmers added on, as well as any other relevant group. The mechanism exists to cater for agreed programmes in terms of employment or income and the consequential changes in taxation or whatever. It has been recognised that results could not be achieved overnight but only when we had a more effectively functioning framework of that nature. In our present situation we could not reasonably say that we would impose an embargo or boycott and allow the consequences to fall on a minority of our people without distributing the burden of cost on the entire population. If we are to think in terms of using the boycott weapon as an instrument of non-violent diplomacy in the future, we must be able to develop some programme for giving more effective expression to the wishes of the Irish people, expressed democratically when a particular cause arises.

For these reasons I feel that we could not agree with the motion as formulated by the Labour Party, even though I would not dissent from the spirit which underlies it. One has to strike a balance that is fair to Irish people, as well as seeking to have a programme of action giving adequate international expression to the views and values which have been put forward by all parties in this House. I hope such views will continue to be expressed and will achieve their culmination in the recognition by the rugby community of the fact that their proposed tour is not simply an innocent sporting activity but is, whether they like it or not, caught up in an expression of political and social policy of a kind which is reprehensible to the Irish people.

Mr. R. Ryan

The subject of this debate is a difficult one because, on the one hand, it is quite understandable that young people would wish to be involved in sport at an important international level and we as a people believe in the free movement of the people of the world without hindrance from governments for political reasons. Indeed we like to encourage our people to participate in sport domestically and at international level because by engaging in sport at that level it encourages them to strive for the highest attainments.

I ask those who contemplate going to South Africa to be concerned about the interests of sportsmen, to be concerned about fellow Irishmen and women who want to take part in sport at an international level and to appreciate that by their insisting on going to South Africa they are probably impairing the prospects of other Irishmen and women from engaging in other sports at international level. Therefore, I appeal to them to reflect, even at this late stage, on the consequences to Irish boys and girls who, because of the insistence of the IRFU in getting involved in this rugby tour in South Africa, may find themselves excluded from international contests as a result of the behaviour of the IRFU.

As we discuss the problem of apartheid, I suggest that possibly on the part of some of the people who are condemning this proposed tour — I exclude Deputy Quinn and his Labour Party colleagues — there is a certain amount of hypocrisy. Last year when efforts were made to discourage people from participation in the Olympic Games in Moscow because the USSR has a long history of denial of human rigths, many people who are now condemning the proposed tour to South Africa remained silent on that occasion. This shilly-shallying by some people on the matter of human rights and sports boycotts does not help when we come to consider whether teams from this and other countries should participate in sports.

I have never taken part in a debate in this House, in the European Parliament or elsewhere without calling on all people involved to consider the fundamental principle that human rights know no political boundary, that human rights are so fundamental it is a matter of indifference whether they are being denied by a right-wing or a left-wing administration. It is somewhat sickening and hypocritical that so often condemnation comes from only one side of the political divide. It is that vacillation, that blinkered view on the part of politicians which leads people outside the immediate political arena to question the sincerity of politicians, which leads them to say politicians have a divided view on matters of human rights and that they are only playing the human rights tune when they think it may serve their own political objectives. The question of the dignity of man, of recognising that people of every colour and race are equal, is superior to any question of political ideology. That should be our fundamental approach not merely in relation to the matter of apartheid but in regard to other political systems. That should be our approach when we consider whether Irish people should engage in sport.

Sport is a voluntary activity in this country and in the western world and I hope it will remain that way. There is a significant difference between a voluntary activity such as sport and matters of trade and commerce. Trade and commerce are not only concerned with the profit to be derived from such activities. They are also concerned with jobs. I mention that because I will be dealing with the last part of the motion of the Labour Party with which Fine Gael will not be associated. As we see it, there is not much point in little Ireland, with a tiny fraction of South African trade, endeavouring to enforce a boycott against South Africa or even attempting to propose such a boycott. We could not ensure that such a boycott or ban would be respected. To allow the racist South African administration to boast that they had defeated an Irish boycott would be the wrong thing to do in our view. However, if there is an international agreement that can be effectively enforced in regard to trade, commerce and investment activities in South Africa, Ireland should be associated with such a movement. We will not be disposed to support a protest which we regard at best as futile and possibly counter-productive, because it could not succeed.

If there is a will on the part of our people to discourage trade with South Africa — and I hope there is — it is easy enough for our people to enforce it. Nearly half of our imports from South Africa and Namibia consist of fruit, mainly oranges and grapefruit. If people are not disposed to support apartheid, all they need do is to go to some other shop or to another part of the counter and buy goods that come from other countries. Our imports from South Africa and Namibia, nearly half of which consists of fruit, are worth about £12 million and we export to South Africa goods valued at approximately £11,500,000. One-quarter of our exports are chemicals, about one-tenth are pharmaceutical and medicinal goods, about one-tenth comprise machinery and equipment and the remainder covers a broad range of goods. Our exports to that country give useful employment here. If we do not export to South Africa our share of the market will be very quickly made up by other countries including many African countries. While I understand and sympathise entirely with the objectives of the proposed boycott, there is little point in our initiating it unless more powerful economic forces in the world row in behind us in this idea. I am not saying it is wrong to put forward the proposal but it should be proposed in a forum that has much more political clout than we have in Ireland.

Apartheid is an abominable system of government which treats people as inferior merely because the colour of their skin is different from that of those who have occupied political power for many decades. It is so repugnant to the dignity of man that one cannot countenance giving any support or recognition to such a system of government.

It has been argued by the IRFU that their participation in the proposed rugby tour does not constitute a recognition of or respect or support for the system of apartheid. That is a very naive view. Most nations in the world quite rightly have resolved not to participate in voluntary activities with South Africa because if they were to do so they would be supporting a system of segregation of people on the basis of the colour of their skin, they would be supporting a system which euphemistically is based on separate development of peoples but which conceals the fact that that separate development leads to unequal development.

The reality of the South African system of government is that it penetrates sports, education, religion, innumerable human activities which are beyond our comprehension. That system penetrates all these human activities so as to ensure the segregation of people on the basis of race, and in electing to go to South Africa the IRFU are supporting a system which regards it as appropriate that people should have separate but unequal development.

Many of those who are to participate in the proposed tour have been educated in Ireland by religious orders whose primary objective has been to engage in missionary activities in Africa, and I find it incomprehensible that students of religious orders in Ireland who have devoted so much of their time to missionary work in Africa should now propose to participate in this rugby tour.

I have had the privilege and the opportunity on behalf of Ireland to participate in a number of international conferences in which the African influence was strong. I am aware, as indeed is any Irishman or woman who has participated in these conferences, that the Irish contribution to the development of the peoples of Africa is one which is greatly respected by our African brothers and sisters. Those people find it very difficult to accept that a country which produced thousands of missionaries — there are about six and a half thousand of them today — who have given up their lives to the education, the health care and the development of impoverished peoples throughout the world, should now be so insensitive to the problem of racial discrimination in Africa that they would send an Irish sports team to compete against racist teams in South Africa. In the last three weeks I was in Sierra Leone at a meeting of the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries with European Parliament representatives. There I was challenged, as was Mr. Seán Flanagan of Fianna Fáil, by representatives of African countries to justify the proposed IRFU tour of South Africa. Needless to say I did not attempt to do so because it could not be justified.

I accept that the decision makers in the IRFU, when they made their decision to participate in the South African tour, might not have been aware of the consequences of their decision. The decision is not purely a sports decision as has been suggested; if it were it would be a simple matter and we in the House would not be discussing it. It is essentially a political decision and the reason we are considering it tonight is that we of all parties are aware that it is a political decision of very considerable consequences.

The first and primary consideration must be the insult which the IRFU tour offers to our African brothers and sisters. The second consideration, and a valid one, is the consequences to Ireland's standing in the world. It is not simply in the diplomatic world, though that is important because our standing in that world is extremely high partly because we are a non-colonial State with nothing to live down, but to a large extent it is due to the fact that Ireland's influence on Africa and the entire Third World in the past has been a benign one, a helpful one, and the reason why the Irish are so acceptable throughout the world is that we do not have any feeling of superiority: we were reared in the cradle to regard ourselves as the equals of others, but never their superiors.

The apartheid system of government is one which asserts the superiority of one group of people because of the colour of their skin, and for us to send — I must amend that because I am satisfied that the overwhelming majority of the Irish people are not sending the IRFU team on tour — for a group of people to go from Ireland to play in South Africa leads to a situation in which all Africans will interpret that as an indication that the people of Ireland are not committed, as our missionaries have been and as all Irish people have been in the past, to the equality of man, without discrimination of colour, class or creed.

The system of apartheid denies basic human rights. It is often said by proponents of apartheid that they are not doing anything more than protecting the investment which the white man made in Africa. They will argue that such investment was made and that any development which occurred since they arrived in Africa was almost exclusively by virtue of their efforts. They will claim, understandably, that the white man in southern Africa is as African as the coloured man. But look at their posters, their notices, which segregate people in public parks and on the trains, in the restaurants and in the schools. They say: "Reserved for Europeans" and "Reserved for natives". Even in their own jargon in their public notices, they defeat their own arguments when they say they are as much African as the others, because they tend to emphasise that the whole regime, the whole system of government, is one of segregation of people because of the colour of their skin.

Debate adjourned.

The Dáil adjourned at 8.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 25 March 1981.