The Irish government has spent half a million on a video to promote its chances of winning a seat on the UN Security council.
But a full €100,000 of that has spent on a video with Bono called ‘Empathy, Partnership and Independence’. This was revealed in the answer to a recent parliamentary question by People Before Profit TD, Bríd Smith.
Yet few believe that the Irish government would take an ‘independent’ stance at the UN.
It backs up the US position on foreign affairs on almost every occasion. Thus, it threw out Russian diplomats from its Dublin embassy but did nothing when it was revealed that Saudia Arabia had murdered the journalist, Jamal Khasshoggi. Before that it even voted to put Saudi Arabia onto the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.
If the government were serious about winning a UN Security Council seat, Ireland would promote a policy of active neutrality rather than taking sides with one of the world’s big imperial powers.
But there is not a chance that it will do that and so the payment of a ‘promotional video’ is simply a neat way of massaging the ego of an aging rock star.
The government would have been better off urging Bono to pay his taxes back home.
