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TAOISEACH MICHÉAL MARTIN has commented on the controversy that has surrounded Sabina Higgins and her letter in the Irish Times about the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
Higgins came under fire for her letter, in which she called for ceasefire negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. In a statement yesterday evening, she said she was “dismayed” that people took issue with her “plea for peace” in a letter to the Irish Times.
Speaking in Cork today, the Taoiseach said:
“I think Miss Sabina Higgins has clarified the situation in terms of her statement. And I think the President, to be fair, also reiterated his strong condemnation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“The Irish government’s position has been consistent from the outset, and remains the position that the invasion was both illegal, immoral and was a terrible act against the people of Ukraine.”
He said the Irish government’s position, along with others in the European Union, is “unequivocal that Russia should withdraw to a minimum to the positions before the war started”.
“And in our view, we’re clear also that many efforts were made by European Union leaders like Chancellor Scholz and Emmanuel Macron to get Vladimir Putin, to deter him from starting the war in first instance”, he said.
“There were many, many engagements with him, as we know. And unfortunately, I think he has an imperialist 19th Century view of life. And he resolved to invade Ukraine and he did,” said the Taoiseach.
Martin also said that people are entitled to their own opinion. When asked if the controversy over the letter has has caused embarrassment for the Government, he said he didn’t see it that way.
Agree on the need for peace
“We live in a democracy too and we have to be conscious of that, people are entitled to their viewpoints. I think we’re all agreed on the need for peace. So there’s no argument there about the need for peace,” Martin added.
“The government’s view is that Russia has to stop the violence, stop the war and withdraw from the territories that it is now occupying since the commencement of this particular war. And that remains our position along with the European Union member states,” he said.
I think everybody accepts, there is no equivalence between Vladimir Putin and President Zelensky. Ukraine didn’t want this war. Europe didn’t want this war. Europe tried everything it could, as did President of the United States to prevent this war from occurring. And terrible, terrible damage has been done as a result of the war. A terrible number of lives have been lost and it is needless, it’s reprehensible, it should end.
“I think all of us on this island and all of us across Europe share a basic point, that peace is something that we all want. And that’s the bottom line in terms of all of the statements that have been made,” he said.
When asked about Sabina Higgins having a separate section on the presidential website for her own comments, the Taoiseach said that this was not the first time a statement from the president’s wife has appeared on the website, as was clarified in her statement yesterday.
The Taoiseach said over the years an “informal practice” has “built up” where the president’s wife may go to a particular opening or adopt a particular cause for the benefit of communities.
He added that there was now a need to move on from the subject, stating that there has been an extensive debate on the issue over the last number of days.
“I think we need to have a sense of perspective about it. I think there has been a lot of debate. That’s important. And I think we live in a democracy. And it’s good that we have people’s viewpoints articulated and so forth…
“I think, in my view, it’s time to move on from it now,” he said.
The Taoiseach also clarified that he has not spoken to the president about the matter.
Letter calling for ceasefire negotiations
In her statement yesterday, Sabina Higgins said: “For the last 11 years since coming to Áras an Uachtaráin as the wife of the President, I have continued my long standing interests on a number of important issues. Since 2014, I have had a dedicated section on the President.ie website.
“This section contains details of activities I have been undertaking including speeches and work towards the implementation of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, health issues, breastfeeding, issues affecting the Traveller Community, human rights, supporting the arts and a range of other issues.
Last week I had been asked about my letter to the Irish Times, which I had written in a personal capacity, by a number of people who had missed it, and had not been able to access it online. I therefore put it on my dedicated section of the website as I have done for the last number of years
The letter was published on Mrs Higgins’s section of the president.ie website – it was not visible on any other part of the website. To view the article, a user had to click on the ‘Sabina Higgins’ link from the main page.
She continued: “Having put my letter up, I subsequently took it down when I saw it being presented as not being from myself, but from the general President.ie website.
“I have from its outset strongly condemned the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine and I cannot be but dismayed that people would find anything unacceptable in a plea for peace and negotiations when the future of humanity is threatened by war, global warming and famine.”
The letter
The letter, published on 27 July in response to the paper’s editorial on the war, said:
“Until the world persuades President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine to agree to a ceasefire and negotiations, the long haul of terrible war will go on. How can there be any winner?”
The Irish Times editorial “did not encourage any ceasefire negotiations that might lead towards a peace settlement between the Russians, the Ukrainian forces and the separatists”, she wrote.
While the letter was met with backlash from some critics such as Fine Gael Senator John McGahon and Fianna Fáil Malcolm Byrne, a number of other politicians, such as former minister Shane Ross spoke about the controversy, saying that calling on the President to clarify his wife’s statement as “ridiculous”.
Former Lord Mayor of Dublin Hazel Chu also said that Sabina Higgins has a long history of trying to encourage peace and that she had every right to offer her opinion on the subject.
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Journalists making mountain out of molehill yet again. Presidents wife calls for peace talks in war! Oh how scandalous!
@Bananaquit: Move on. Is he mad? There’s the whole of August to express faux outrage to go.
@Bananaquit: The Ministers and TDs have done their best to put the boot in because Michael D called a spade a spade about housing in this country. Meanwhile this shambles of a government lurches onward. Forget about Sabina, FFG should write a letter to the Russians about how they too understand what a failure in governance looks like. Making their citizens poorer would be common ground.
@Bananaquit: has anyone actually read the letter? I can’t seem to find it, am I being stupid?
@Sean McCarthy: How feeble, helpless, and passive is that?
It is a few seconds’ work to visit the letters section of the Irish Times website and to scroll down to find the epistle.
Here, for God’s sake:
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/2022/07/27/war-in-ukraine-a-moment-of-moral-choice/
@Bananaquit: If it was any other war…..
He’s had to say that quite a lot, like when he flatly refused that he would go into government with fg
Jeebus lads who had Micheál Martin being the voice of reason on this?
@Mel Finn: sure..Mel Sinn is it ..?
@Mel Finn: Fair enough. Look the guy is naturally incompetent and not up to being a leader but he is giving it his best shot. Lay off! Or no wait, maybe not, this is a country and it’s peoples livelihoods that we are gambling with…
They’re avoiding the inevitable which is Russia’s advancement needs to be stopped. Or it won’t stop.
But I stand with Sabina in her call for peace that is somehow controversial.
@Dean: it’s only controversial because she called for both to ceasefire and negotiate which suggest that both are to blame. Had she said that the aggressor should withdraw to establish peace then there would be no problem with this and we wouldn’t have the Russian foreign minister applauding her statements and the Ukrainians angered by them. The lesson her is to use her voice on the presidential website for non-political views. Charity stuff etc great but let the elected present speak about politics in consultation with govt so it at least looks as though they’re all on the same page.
Did she say any of your interpretation? Or are you putting words in her mouth?
Typical of FFGers to try spin a story that is actually advocating for peace.
@Dean: ok you’re clearly not understanding the problem. Oh and yes of course I’m a Blueshirt even though I’ve never voted for them in my life. Let me guess who you’ll be voting for in the next GE.
Amazing that Sabina Higgins can’t call for negotiations to take place between warring states while our sainted Taoiseach appears wholly unaware of the fact of the existence of Minsk2 which was passed unanimously by the UN Security Council in February 2015 and then remained ignored by both Ukraine and its Guarantors, France and Germany for 8 years. Ex-President Poroshenko recently admitted during the course of an interview that Ukraine had not the slightest intention of complying with Minsk2 and used the period between February 2015 and February 2022 to build up its military & its military capacities while both France and Germany spent the past 3 years trying to persuade Russia to agree to unilateral changes to Minsk2 that both they and EU & US & Ukraine wanted to impose on both Luhansk & Donetsk Peoples’ Republics in violation of the Resolution of the UN Security Council.
@Gregory Casey: Minsk II failed even before implementation because of territorial advantage-seeking manipulative Ukrainian separatist machinations over Debaltseve, backed by Putin.
@Gregory Casey: You lost most people on where when you mentioned ‘Minsk 2′. Putin is a man dictator who runs to over run Europe. He is mad and attacked suddenly without logic. ‘merica good. Russia bad.
@Jim Smith: You lost most people on here when you mentioned ‘Minsk 2′. Putin is a mad dictator who wants to over run Europe. He is mad and just attacked suddenly without logic. ‘merica good. Russia bad.
Joe Duffy Milking it for the coupe of Days He thinks he is God
Taoiseach says” it’s time to move on, we have many other dissenters to flog yet “
He said the same about the zapping affair. Time to move on
I think he feels embarrassed
Michael Martin has a new Middle Name, he should now be known as Michael “Time to Move On”Martin.
The country is calling out for decisive leadership,decent governance and they are going on with this shlte.
Martin and Higgins are part of the tired old guard,the sooner we get rid of them the better.New faces,new ideas badly needed right now.
@joe oneill: You might get new faces but there are no new workable ideas. All the ideas have already been expressed.
Bla Bla Bla time to move on and all that, anonymous senators and chocolate freaks aside we need real action on things that the country can do something about, there’s quite a lot going on in the country at the moment, cost of living, healthcare, homelessness etc Senator’s are quite useless and have done little or nothing to help the above problems all of us are facing.
@Epgenetics29 Declan Christy: Ukraine can be discussed while addressing cost of living, healthcare, and homelessness. It’s called multitasking and having a Department of Foreign Affairs.
Do you think government should address only one problem? Homelessness, maybe? Or atmospheric heating? We elect them to address many issues and would scream blue bloody murder if they didn’t.
Why do people so reliably wear blinkers and miss the obvious?
Another lesson learnt. Let’s move on.
Who is he to tell anyone to move on, cheek of him and hos cartels
Even a broken clock tells the right time twice a day I suppose.
Michéal loves thinking he’s the voice of reason. Move along children she’s had enough he says.
Din din din here he comes to to save the day .
I have to wonder about the fairly ‘template’ comments on this story here over the last few days. Very little variety in the emphasis of the points being made. Very little effort made to do more than just react. Overloading of comments dismissing what was poor judgement on the part of a respected and popular wife of an equally respected and popular president. Sorry, but in her position, it’s not enough to be well meaning, because her/their words carry weight due to their positions. I’ve grown extremely tired of hearing the refrain of ‘Peace’ in one or two sentence comments, which ignore the responsibility to present a properly thought out and appropriately worded plan on how to actually move towards ‘peace’. And the failure to acknowledge how poorly presented arguments actually undermine the momentum for peaceful resolution. A failure to take a crisis seriously enough to rise about banal and simple-minded analysis is in fact offensive to those on both sides of the conflict and the realities they face. I’ve really felt like this story has drowned us in voices who can’t seem to understand that we have to do more than just ‘react’. It’s persuaded me to quit ‘The Journal’ for good. I really hope that the people who comment here and make proper arguments are just on holidays and haven’t just abandoned the comments section.
@David A. Murray: You want properly thought out arguments? Not from Journal readers. It’s not The Intellectuals’ Quarterly you’re reading. Why make a small effort at refined thinking when it’s so much easier to jeer?
@David A. Murray: It seems like the journal and any other forum will be better off with this irrational neurotic person.
She should know to keep her mouth shut…it might upset “meholes” chances for a job with the big boys in Europe
I’m sure that there are many other things that can be milked to death :P
Its the ‘silly season’
@Kerry365: If you follow the news year round, you should have noticed with accumulating exhaustion that every day is a silly season.
The last time we fought a war against a coloniser, we were bullied into yielding to separatists an entire province of territory, which turned into a failed political entity.
Would Sabina Higgins have accepted with equanimity the advice of Olena Zelenska during our war of independence a hundred years ago to negotiate with a powerful bully?
The Taoiseach said: “I think Miss Sabina Higgins has clarified the situation…”
Did he really say that? Sabina married Michael in 1974, therefore she is Mrs. Why would the Taoiseach refer to her otherwise? It’s a very queer deviation from customary usage and provokes inquiry.
Time to move on, bleats the uninspired, lazy taoiseach.
This unimaginative, unoriginal little formula beloved of tired and dreary politicians which means only “I don’t want you inconveniencing me with public conversation – to which of course you are completely entitled – but please stop your spirited public engagement for my sake to make the job I fought for easier for me.”
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