{"id":286348,"date":"2026-02-07T22:45:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T22:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/286348\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T22:45:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T22:45:07","slug":"holly-cairns-urges-taoiseach-not-to-bow-to-bullies-when-visiting-trump-in-oval-office-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/286348\/","title":{"rendered":"Holly Cairns urges Taoiseach not to \u2018bow to bullies\u2019 when visiting Trump in Oval Office \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Taoiseach must make clear to US president Donald Trump when he visits the Oval Office next month that Ireland does not \u201cbow down to bullies\u201d, Social Democrats<\/a> leader Holly Cairns<\/a> has said. <\/p>\n

In her leader\u2019s address at her party\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

She said Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> must tell the US president that Ireland stands \u201calongside our EU allies, we are not joining the Board of Peace, and we do not bow down to bullies.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to say to them: \u2018Prove it.\u2019 Put it to the people. And let us vote on it,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe must improve pay and conditions for personnel, support our peacekeepers, and invest in measures like cyber security and anti-drone technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause being neutral does not mean being defenceless,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Turning to the \u201ctoxic nature\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

This, Cairns said, would help ensure their images and unique identities are not being violated or manipulated by bad actors online.<\/p>\n

She said the latest threat is that if people dared to stand up to the hate of certain actors, \u201cthey\u2019ll order an AI app to undress you\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor too long, this Government has allowed social media and tech companies to regulate themselves, which effectively means no regulation at all \u2013 no enforcement, and no safeguards.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf everybody had copyright, like ownership of their own body and voice, there\u2019d be consequences for people who created deepfake images of people,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

She said the recent Grok<\/a> controversy had come about because child sex abuse images were being created on \u201can industrial scale\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s safe to say the Government\u2019s reaction has been weak. We saw in countries like France that Twitter, or X\u2019s, offices were raided, and in Ireland they were lightly asked for a meeting. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe think the suggestions for a ban for under-16s [on social media] is something that should be looked into.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

The party also introduced its two byelection candidates, Cllr Daniel Ennis in Dublin Central and M\u00edde Nic Fhionnlaoich in Galway West.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s candidacy. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Taoiseach must make clear to US president Donald Trump when he visits the Oval Office next month…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[137567,969,605,4069,21010,61,60,1843,43,1419,606],"class_list":["post-286348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-cork-south-west-constituency","tag-donald-trump","tag-elon-musk","tag-grok","tag-holly-cairns","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-micheal-martin","tag-news","tag-social-democrats","tag-x"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}