Harris and Martin ramp up criticism of Connolly over Syria trip

The Taoiseach has said his meeting with former Syrian president Bashar Assad was “very different” to presidential candidate Catherine Connolly’s trip to the country nine years later.

Ms Connolly said she had “no control” over who she met while on her 2018 visit to Syria in which she encountered pro-Assad figures.

The Irish Times reported on Friday that one of the men Ms Connolly met in Syria was a leader of a group charged with killing Palestinians in a refugee camp.

Asked if she was aware of this, Ms Connolly said: “No, I wasn’t.”

Speaking during a debate on RTE’s Morning Ireland, she said: “I went to Syria on a fact-finding mission. The first port of call was the Palestinian refugee camp outside Damascus.

“We were to go to Beirut, but we joined the group later, and the group had gone to a Palestinian refugee camp outside of Beirut.

“We went from Beirut to Damascus on a trip, a fact-finding trip – we met different groups.”

Ms Connolly added: “You have no control when you go to a country like that as to who will come into your presence or not.

“That’s no endorsement of the regime. I’m on record for condemning the regime, I did not meet with (then-president) Assad.”

The independent candidate said she went to deepen her understanding of the experiences of the Palestinian refugees and discovered that the camp was “utterly destroyed”.

She insisted that she had met Palestinians who “spoke to us as openly as they could within a dictatorship”.

Ms Connolly has also noted that Mr Martin directly engaged with Mr Assad in 2009.

At a press conference on Friday, Mr Martin defended that meeting, saying: “I think my visit was a much earlier phase back in 2009, on the advice of Department of Foreign Affairs officials at the time, because it was a wider Middle East visit to do with the peace process and Palestine.”

He said Syria had been involved in discussions with Israel and Turkey at the time.

On Ms Connolly’s trip, Mr Martin said the context of her visit was “much, much different”.

He said she had met people who had been involved in the persecution of Palestinians.

Mr Martin said: “Clearly no advanced research went into that, it seems to me from what I’ve hard.”

At the same press conference, Fine Gael leader Simon Harris said it was “very unfair” for Ms Connolly to conflate her trip to Mr Martin’s.

He said she had suggested she was on a humanitarian mission but it had since emerged she was in the presence of war criminals.

Mr Harris added: “It’s also emerged in recent days that she didn’t fund the trip, we the Irish people did, and therefore I think full transparency and breakdown of the costs is important in relation to that.”

On the Syria trip as well as her engagement with Oireachtas officials about an access pass for a woman convicted of a firearm offence, Mr Harris said: “There’s a lot of things that the deputy is kind of considering.

“She gets asked a difficult question, she considers it – with a week left (until the election), it would be useful if her considerations could come to a conclusion.”

In the presidential debate with Ms Connolly on Friday, Fine Gael candidate Heather Humphreys also said she “did her best” for a constituent despite voting against an inquiry into the circumstances of her son’s death.

Lucia O’Farrell has been critical of the former minister’s level of support for her campaign for justice for her late son Shane, who was hit by a car driven by a man who should have been in jail.

Ms Humphreys said she made representations to justice ministers at the time and added: “I made representations on her behalf. I’m sorry that she says I didn’t do enough. I’m sorry if that’s the case. I really am, but I did my best.”

Pressed on why she did not support a vote for a public inquiry, Ms Humphreys said she voted with the Government.

She said: “There was reason behind that. I don’t know exactly the detail of it.”

The two candidates were questioned on a series of controversies during a Morning Ireland debate on RTE Radio One, a week out from the vote on October 24.

The latest opinion poll put Ms Connolly on 38% and Ms Humphreys trailing on 20%, with a large amount of undecideds still to play for.

Fianna Fail candidate Jim Gavin remains on the ballot paper and his votes will be counted as usual, despite the former GAA manager declaring he was no longer contesting the race.

Mr Harris said Ms Humphreys’ campaign is growing “day by day” as he rejected a suggestion she was doomed.

Mr Martin maintained “it’s all to play for” with one week to go ahead of polling day, as he reiterated his support for the Fine Gael candidate.

The party leader faced internal disquiet about the process to select Mr Gavin as the Fianna Fail candidate, which resurfaced after he dropped out of the race when it emerged he owed a former tenant thousands of euros.

Asked about former party leader Bertie Ahern saying he had been let down by Fianna Fail leadership for not supporting his ambitions, Mr Martin said: “I received no call from Bertie at any stage in advance of that, but these are matters that I can elaborate in greater detail in terms of the review that the Fianna Fail party will undertake.”

Pressed on the fact that Mr Ahern had contacted the party’s national executive several times, Mr Martin said the matter would be examined under the review.