{"id":87112,"date":"2025-10-17T18:29:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T18:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/87112\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T18:29:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T18:29:10","slug":"connolly-defends-fact-finding-mission-to-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/87112\/","title":{"rendered":"Connolly defends \u2018fact-finding mission\u2019 to Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"

Catherine Connolly said she had \u201cno control\u201d over who she met while on a 2018 visit to Syria in which she encountered pro-Assad figures.<\/p>\n

In a broadcast presidential debate with Ms Connolly on Friday, Fine Gael candidate Heather Humphreys also said she \u201cdid her best\u201d for a constituent despite voting against an inquiry into the circumstances of her son\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

The two candidates were questioned on a series of controversies during a Morning Ireland debate on RT\u00c9 Radio One, a week out from the vote on October 24th.<\/p>\n

The latest opinion poll put Ms Connolly on 38 per cent and Ms Humphreys trailing on 20 per cent, with a large number of undecideds still to play for.<\/p>\n

Fianna F\u00e1il candidate Jim Gavin remains on the ballot paper and his votes will be counted as normal, despite the former GAA manager declaring he was no longer contesting the race.<\/p>\n

\"IrishFine Gael presidential candidate Heather Humphreys (Brian Lawless\/PA)<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Asked if she was aware of this, Ms Connolly said: \u201cNo, I wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went to Syria on a fact-finding mission. The first port of call was the Palestinian refugee camp outside Damascus.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were to go to Beirut, but we joined the group later, and the group had gone to a Palestinian refugee camp outside of Beirut.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went from Beirut to Damascus on a trip, a fact-finding trip \u2013 we met different groups.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cYou have no control when you go to a country like that as to who will come into your presence or not.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s no endorsement of the regime. I\u2019m on record for condemning the regime, I did not meet with (then-president Bashar) Assad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms Connolly said she went to deepen her understanding of the experiences of the Palestinian refugees and discovered that the camp was \u201cutterly destroyed\u201d.<\/p>\n

She insisted that she had met Palestinians who \u201cspoke to us as openly as they could within a dictatorship\u201d.<\/p>\n

During the same radio programme, Ms Humphreys reiterated that she did her \u201cbest\u201d for her constituent Lucia O\u2019Farrell.<\/p>\n

Ms O\u2019Farrell has been critical of the former minister\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Ms Humphreys said she made representations to justice ministers at the time and added: \u201cI made representations on her behalf. I\u2019m sorry that she says I didn\u2019t do enough. I\u2019m sorry if that\u2019s the case. I really am, but I did my best.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pressed on why she did not support a vote for a public inquiry, Ms Humphreys said she voted with the Government.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was reason behind that. I don\u2019t know exactly the detail of it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Catherine Connolly said she had \u201cno control\u201d over who she met while on a 2018 visit to Syria…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-87112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87112","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=87112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}