{"id":282718,"date":"2026-01-13T21:52:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T21:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/282718\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T21:52:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T21:52:07","slug":"sinn-feins-matt-carthy-defends-party-attendance-at-maduro-inauguration-in-venezuela-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/282718\/","title":{"rendered":"Sinn Fein\u2019s Matt Carthy defends party attendance at Maduro inauguration in Venezuela \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The attendance of two senior Sinn F\u00e9in<\/a> members at the 2019 inauguration of Venezuela<\/a>\u2019s former president Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a> has been defended by the party.<\/p>\n

Justice spokesman Matt Carthy<\/a> said any suggestion that Irish representatives should not go to states where there are breaches of international or humanitarian law or democracy would \u201cseverely limit\u201d their ability to call out such breaches.<\/p>\n

US<\/a> forces captured Mr Maduro<\/a> along with his wife Cilia Flores in a military operation earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s Senator Conor Murphy<\/a> \u2013 then a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly \u2013 and former party general secretary Dawn Doyle attended Mr Maduro\u2019s inauguration in 2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The party said its representatives were invited by the Venezuelan government, and Sinn F\u00e9in leader Mary Lou McDonald<\/a> said at the time: \u201cWe believe the Venezuelan election was open and democratic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Maduro again declared victory in the 2024 Venezuelan election, despite evidence provided by the opposition, and reviewed by independent analysts, showing another candidate on course for a resounding victory.<\/p>\n

Mr Maduro had been elected twice previously, in 2012 and 2018, having succeeded long-time socialist president Hugo Ch\u00e1vez.<\/p>\n

There were allegations of electoral fraud in the 2018 election.<\/p>\n

The attendance of Sinn F\u00e9in members at the 2019 inauguration has come in for criticism from some in Government in recent days, with T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris<\/a> highlighting it last week. <\/p>\n

Asked at a press conference at Leinster House whether Sinn F\u00e9in now regretted its members\u2019 attendance at the inauguration, Mr Carthy said: \u201cIt was in 2019, so obviously, the circumstances were very different.<\/p>\n

\u201cI listened to Government representatives talk about Sinn F\u00e9in attending the inauguration of somebody who they claimed wasn\u2019t elected and they were making those comments on the same day that the Taoiseach was actually in China. So we won\u2019t take any lectures from Fianna F\u00e1il or Fine Gael in that regard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Carthy said the party was a supporter of democracies around the world. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe absolutely condemn what has been very dangerous in terms of international law \u2013 precedents that have been set by the actions of the United States over the past number of weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

As to whether Sinn F\u00e9in stood over its defence of the democratic credentials of Mr Maduro\u2019s regime, given the allegations of fraud in 2018 and 2024, Mr Carthy replied: \u201cI\u2019m not going to have a historical debate in terms of the validity of one election or another.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the party engaged in international work on an ongoing basis, and that its principles related to national self-determination and the fundamental principles of democracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this moment in time, the United States of America is in breach of international law through their actions, and we think that as a small, independent, neutral country, that Ireland should be stating that categorically,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Mr Carthy confirmed that Sinn F\u00e9in had previously raised concerns about the actions of the Maduro regime. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you\u2019ll see through resolutions in the European Parliament as far back as when I was a member, we\u2019ve supported resolutions and we\u2019ve supported amendments that have been extremely critical of administrations all over the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Carthy said that if Irish representatives did not travel to states where there were breaches of international or humanitarian law, or principles of democracy, this would \u201climit severely… the ability of elected representatives to go to a lot of places in the world\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe important thing for a political party and for a government to do is to call out breaches of international law, call out breaches of human rights, call out breaches of democracy, when and where they happen \u2013 and that\u2019s what Sinn F\u00e9in do consistently.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2019, Mr Murphy defended his decision to travel, stating that Mr Maduro had been \u201cdemocratically elected\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will use our presence in Venezuela to express our continuing solidarity to the people supporting their legitimate demands to build a just and equal society, free from foreign intervention,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Efforts have been made to contact Ms Doyle. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The attendance of two senior Sinn F\u00e9in members at the 2019 inauguration of Venezuela\u2019s former president Nicol\u00e1s Maduro…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,124341,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,108361,5,42875,44,47,7,8,107,4450,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-282718","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-conor-murphy","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-latest-news","15":"tag-latestnews","16":"tag-main-news","17":"tag-mainnews","18":"tag-matt-carthy","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-nicolas-maduro","21":"tag-simon-harris","22":"tag-sinn-fein","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-topstories","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-venezuela","27":"tag-world","28":"tag-world-news","29":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115890011865292124","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}