Did we congratulate or condemn Saudi Arabia?

IS that another imagined conversation, Taoiseach? He’s got in trouble before for coming up with his own ‘alternative facts’ about exchanges that never really happened.

Now Enda Kenny seems bemused and confused yet again about what he said, this time when he spoke to Crown Prince Salman of Saudi Arabia on a 2014 trade mission.

Pressed on whether our country had actually voted to put Saudi Arabia on the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, Mr Kenny claimed: “We’ve raised the question of women’s rights with the Saudi Arabians and I was there myself on a trade mission a number of years ago.”

However, a check of the Dáil record showed Mr Kenny told the opposition at the time the issue of women’s rights was not expressly raised.

In a bid to clear up the muddle yesterday, Mr Kenny then offered a new version: “I went to Saudi Arabia on a trade mission in 2014, and as part of that, at my own initiative, I raised the question of human rights with the Saudi authorities, which obviously includes women’s rights …”

At the time, January 2014 to be precise, Mr Kenny told the Irish Independent on that trip: “I congratulated the crown prince, his royal highness, on the fact that Saudi Arabia has been invited to the human rights council of the United Nations and served there in the last number of years. I congratulated the Saudis on its leadership in terms of moderation here in the Gulf region and its desire for peace in light of a lot of complex issues.”

Rather than condemning the Saudis’ lamentable record on human rights and women’s rights, our leader congratulated them. Quite the embarrassing difference.

Still we are unclear about how Ireland voted. The diplomatic silence suggests we backed the Saudis.