The Taoiseach must make clear to US president Donald Trump when he visits the Oval Office next month that Ireland does not “bow down to bullies”, Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns has said.
In her leader’s address at her party’s national conference in Cork, Cairns said it was now clear that a policy of appeasement had not worked with the Trump administration, and a more assertive approach was needed.
She said Micheál Martin must tell the US president that Ireland stands “alongside our EU allies, we are not joining the Board of Peace, and we do not bow down to bullies.”
Addressing 400 delegates at the Silver Springs Hotel in Cork, Cairns also challenged the Coalition to seek a mandate from the people before it removed the triple lock, the mechanism employed to allow Ireland participate in overseas peacekeeping missions.
“I would like to say to them: ‘Prove it.’ Put it to the people. And let us vote on it,” she said.
However, in what will be received as a policy departure, Cairns said that if Ireland is to remain neutral the State will have to bolster its security and increase defence spending.
“We must improve pay and conditions for personnel, support our peacekeepers, and invest in measures like cyber security and anti-drone technology.
“Because being neutral does not mean being defenceless,” she said.
Turning to the “toxic nature” of social media and its impact on young people and minorities, she said the party wanted to introduce laws that would allow every person to have a right of copyright over their own body and own voice.
This, Cairns said, would help ensure their images and unique identities are not being violated or manipulated by bad actors online.
She said the latest threat is that if people dared to stand up to the hate of certain actors, “they’ll order an AI app to undress you”.
“For too long, this Government has allowed social media and tech companies to regulate themselves, which effectively means no regulation at all – no enforcement, and no safeguards.
“If everybody had copyright, like ownership of their own body and voice, there’d be consequences for people who created deepfake images of people,” she said.
She said the recent Grok controversy had come about because child sex abuse images were being created on “an industrial scale”.
“It’s safe to say the Government’s reaction has been weak. We saw in countries like France that Twitter, or X’s, offices were raided, and in Ireland they were lightly asked for a meeting.
“We think the suggestions for a ban for under-16s [on social media] is something that should be looked into.
“The reality is we have a ban for under-13s, and that simply does not work. We need to focus on making online spaces better and safer for children and minorities, and to do that, we need to address the toxic algorithms that are feeding people hate and toxicity by default.”
The party also introduced its two byelection candidates, Cllr Daniel Ennis in Dublin Central and Míde Nic Fhionnlaoich in Galway West.
Cairns told delegates that the party would stand a candidate in each of the 43 constituencies in the next election and would continue working with parties of the left, building on the experience of the presidential election campaign last autumn, where the Social Democrats was the first political party to support Catherine Connolly’s candidacy.