John’s N Korea jolly pure folly, insist ministers
OFFICIALS from the Department of Foreign Affairs are to travel to the office of junior minister John Halligan to go through the volatile situation in North Korea with him.
Mr Halligan – who has faced almost two weeks of controversy – is expected to receive the briefing over the next 24 hours, as Government ministers last night rowed in behind him, while also criticising his plans to visit North Korea. Mr Halligan’s Independent Alliance colleague Shane Ross indicated last week that this trip is now ‘off’.
Health Minister Simon Harris said: ‘The North Korean question, I think, is well and truly answered – it was certainly not a good idea and we do our talking to other nations through the Department of Foreign Affairs, so I’m very pleased to hear that that trip is not going ahead.’
Education Minister Richard Bruton said North Korea ‘is not a country with which we should be seeking to develop relations’, but added that the controversy was not a sackable offence. He said: ‘It is a very despotic regime, it has a really bad human rights record, it is actively pursuing threats to... South Korea. I think the idea was a mistaken idea. I think that has been acknowledged by the Independent Alliance – and the Department of Foreign Affairs, I think, will be briefing John on their approach to this issue.
‘I think it was a mistake, but this is not an issue on which a minister should be asked to resign.’
Minister Bruton added: ‘I think, clearly, North Korea is not the sort of State we should be seeking to support in any way. I think we have to take a unified approach as the Department of Foreign Affairs will set out for John, so that we use our position within the EU, within the wider international community, to achieve a peaceful outcome in that part of the world.’