Dublin city councillor proposes reducing contacts with US government, given its crimes

Dublin City Council should take several steps to reduce its official contacts with the US federal government, People Before Profit Councillor Conor Reddy has proposed, in a motion on the agenda for a committee meeting on Thursday.

Reddy’s motion to the Protocol Committee “notes with grave concern” the involvement of the Trump administration in “facilitating the forced displacement of the Palestinian people in Gaza” and undermining international law. 

He also points to the US’s “unlawful intervention” in Venezuela, threats to the sovereignty of other countries, and the violent treatment of people from other countries living in the US, including Irish citizens.

As well as the attendance of US Ambassador to Ireland Edward Walsh at the IRL Forum in Co. Meath in January, along with Eddie Hobbs, Senator Sharon Keoghan, Dublin City Councillor Malachy Steenson, barrister Una McGurk, and others. 

The current US national security strategy includes, “Cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations.” MAGA influencer Steve Bannon told Politico in December that he has been behind the scenes to form an Irish “national party”.  

On foot of all this, Reddy’s motion says, the council should refuse to sanction travel to the US where there is official engagement with the US federal government – including St Patrick’s Day events.

And it should “write to relevant sections and individuals” requesting the US ambassador plays no role in Dublin’s St Patrick’s Festival, and that future engagement with the US embassy and federal government be limited to essential business only, the motion says. 

But if the council’s Protocol Committee backs Reddy’s motion on Thursday, it’s not clear how much impact it could actually have.

Speaking by phone on Tuesday, Reddy says he isn’t sure what links Dublin City Council currently has with the US government in Washington, or with the US embassy, but that he hopes to find out through the motion. 

“It's about trying to bring that to the surface and challenge any involvement with the US federal government,” he says. Also, “I’d see it as a way of building pressure on the national government around trips to Washington this St Patrick’s Day.” 

Some councillors on the Protocol Committee said they’d support the motion, while others say they share the concerns expressed in the motion, around the actions of the US government, but aren’t sure about backing Reddy’s motion. 

Some support

Reddy says he proposed the motion to Dublin City Council after his party colleague Shaun Harkin, a councillor on Derry City and Strabane District Council, tabled a motion in January, condemning the US attack on Venezuela and calling on Irish politicians not to accept invitations to the White House for St Patrick’s Day. 

“When tyrants go unchallenged, it emboldens them,” said Harkin at the meeting. His motion passed unopposed, although with several abstentions. 

Independent Councillor Mannix Flynn said he would support Reddy’s motion at the Protocol Committee on Thursday. 

“Any motion that is going to draw attention to human rights abuses, and confront people who are supplying arms to Israel and undermining democracy, I would support that,” Flynn says. 

Fianna Fáil Councillor Deirdre Heney said she shares the concerns raised in the motion about the US government’s behaviour, but has reservations about the actions it calls for.

“Personally, I agree with what is in the first part of the motion,” Heney said. “I certainly don’t condone what the Trump administration is engaged in.”

“But I don’t think it's a good thing to alienate Irish Americans or other Americans,” said Heney, who said she has American friends who are extremely upset about what is happening there. 

“I certainly don’t want to be telling officials to stay away from the United States of America,” she says. 

What can the council do?

Heney said the actions Reddy’s motion calls for are outside the council's control.

Reddy says he thinks the US ambassador is formally invited to the St Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin. 

But the St Patrick’s Festival is an independent organisation that is not controlled by Dublin City Council, Heney said. 

So councillors can call for the festival to disinvite the US ambassador, but they cannot actually make it happen. 

Flynn, the independent councillor said councillors could raise the issue at the full council’s monthly meeting in early March. “We should call on the Lord Mayor to ask the ambassador not to attend,” he said. 

Neither Heney nor Labour Councillor Dermot Lacey could think of any direct links the council has with the US federal government. 

Dublin City Council officials and councillors do travel to the US – and other nations – as detailed in travel records on the council’s website. 

Like a visit to New York last April by then Lord Mayor Emma Blain, a Fine Gael councillor, and four council officials. But that visit, like others, does not appear to have involved contact with the US federal government.

Lacey, the Labour councillor, says he travelled to the US when he was Lord Mayor, back in 2002–2003. 

He cannot recall any direct links between the council and the US federal government, but Dublin city is twinned with San Jose, and the council does organise visits to that city, he said. 

Reddy says it isn’t those kinds of trips he wants cancelled, it is events that directly engage with the US federal government. 

St Patrick’s Day 

Reddy says that if the motion passes, it should add to pressure on the Taoiseach not to go to Washington for St. Patrick's Day this year. 

Heney says she supports the decision of the Taoiseach, her party leader, Micheál Martin, to attend the St Patrick’s Day celebrations in Washington this year and meet with the US President, Donald Trump. 

“The Taoiseach has no choice in the matter. A lot of Americans came before President Trump and a lot will come after him,” Heney said. 

If she were the leader, she would go too, she said. Not going would mean letting down regular Americans, she says. 

She used to live in Boston and has American friends who are very upset about what is happening internally in the US, she said. 

“We have a huge amount of connections, cultural and all the rest of it with our American friends, and I don’t think it's them that are causing the problems,” she said. 

For Heney, the visit is a gesture to ordinary Americans, she said. 

“I don’t believe that the leader of my country, by going over with a bowl of shamrock, is condoning what the Trump administration is doing,” she says. “He is not giving it to him in his personal capacity. He is giving it to the American people.”

Lacey, the Labour Party councillor, says he hasn’t attended the Fourth of July celebrations at the US Ambassador’s residence for the last two years, but if he were a senior government official, he would go to Washington for St Patrick’s Day. 

“I think they have a duty to maintain diplomatic links,” said Lacey. “That doesn’t mean we have to condone anything.”

He thinks senior Irish government officials should also meet with Palestinian people while they are in the US, to show balance, he said. 

“A lot depends on how Micheál Martin handles it,” he says. “I think that is the skill of diplomacy.”

It’s a tough sell for the audience at home, though. “I’m glad I’m not Minister for Foreign Affairs,” says Lacey.