Yesterday, we had taken the group of questions, Nos. 12 to 21, inclusive. Deputy Howlin was in possession.

I will briefly restate the questions I posed. I said that when I asked on 13 December 2017 where the Taoiseach was visiting, he did not tell me that he was going to Budapest and it is surprising that an important visit such as that was not scheduled a matter of weeks beforehand. The Taoiseach in his reply yesterday indicated that he laid out to Prime Minister Orbán concerns in respect of the policy being pursued by his government. What reply did he get? I also asked whether any NGOs in Hungary had asked to meet the Taoiseach on his visit and whether he met them.

The Taoiseach's speech to the European Parliament was surprising in the extent to which it failed to address most of the most urgent issues facing the EU. One of these is how we react to member states that seem to reject basic democratic norms such as the balance of power and independence for both the media and academia. Hungary is a member state and we must deal with it. I do not have an issue with the Taoiseach meeting the Hungarian Prime Minister but it is striking that he has so little to say on this core issue. What does he think the Union should do when a member state tries to put the judiciary under the direct control of government, attacks journalists and tries to undermine funding for NGOs? Like Deputy Howlin, I would like clarification on whether the Taoiseach made any attempt to meet civic society representatives in Hungary during this visit. This will become a bigger issue in the near future. The far right FPO in Austria will, if it is true to past form, start attacking important pillars of the Union. Last weekend, a journalist was physically attacked at a press conference held by the Czech President and the new Czech Prime Minister verbally attacked a journalist on the same day. Is it not reasonable to expect the Taoiseach to be clearer on this issue than he has been and to be so in Strasbourg, Brussels and elsewhere? He said he would raise the issue of the rule of law in Budapest. What exactly did he say and what was the response?

Concerning the meeting with the Bulgarian Prime Minister, will the Taoiseach be more specific about the proposals he put to him regarding Ireland's priorities within the Council of Ministers?

The European Council President, Donald Tusk, at the EU summit in December endeavoured to launch a major review of the Union's migration policy. It seems that there was much disagreement on this issue and that Hungary and other member states were opposed to mandatory relocation quotas. It was agreed to set up a fund to stem the flow of illegal migration and to consider further the reform of the Dublin Convention at the meeting to be held in June. Given its geographic location, Ireland is not at the coalface of this problem but I hope that our approach is based on the view that this is a humanitarian crisis that needs a humanitarian response.

There has been an increase in illiberal tendencies within the EU in recent years. Traditional liberal and democratic values are being challenged in Poland and Hungary, in particular. The EU has invoked Article 7 in respect of Poland in response to changes made to the appointment of judges there. Hungary is siding with Poland in opposing this move by Brussels. In addition, both countries are opposed to deepening EU integration. The Council will have to address this issue. Sanctions may be imposed on Poland and the flow of Structural Funds may be hit. Did the Taoiseach discuss this matter with Prime Minister Orbán? Did he also discuss the issue of tax harmonisation with him? I presume Ireland and Hungary have the same view on this. All of this can be viewed in the context of the future of Europe and the ongoing debate in this regard.

Viktor Orbán is part of a dangerous political cancer that is growing in Europe, which is characterised by extreme racism, authoritarianism and anti-democratic tendencies, which in some cases is directly linked to fascist organisations.

While it is reasonable to say we should talk to people even if we disagree with them which I know is the Taoiseach's standard line on these matters, there is a problem and a line in terms of what is acceptable. To take the obvious example, appeasement did not work with the fascist movement in the 1930s because it was not interested in democracy. It was interested in promoting a filthy, racist, anti-democratic, authoritarian version of politics. This week Viktor Orbán is meeting the Freedom Party of Austria which was set up by former Nazis. They are clubbing together as an extreme right-wing group which is promoting racism, flouting the UN Convention on Human Rights when it comes to the treatment of immigrants, suppressing press freedom and compromising the independence of the judiciary. At some point the Taoiseach has to recognise that when democracy, whatever stripe one supports, is under threat from people such as Viktor Orbán, we have to take a clear stand against those politics and begin to work out a strategy to defeat rather than conciliate it.

Prime Minister Orbán gave me and the Minister of State, Deputy Helen McEntee, quite a lot of time. There was an opportunity for the two of us to understand, parse and analyse his philosophy a little better. Essentially, he believes in four pillars: Christianity, the Hungarian nation, the family and competitiveness. Even though his party is part of the same political family as mine, it is fair to say we are at the opposite ends of the internal spectrum. We are more secular, globalist and internationalist and have a wider view of what family means, but we are very much aligned with Mr. Orbán's party on issues surrounding economics and competitiveness. As Deputy Seán Haughey pointed out, Hungary and Ireland share the same view on tax. In fact, it has a lower corporation tax rate than we do and will certainly be an ally of ours in opposing any attempt to remove tax sovereignty from member states. We have a similar view on Brexit and the western Balkans and share a view that the European budget should be well funded and continue to provide adequate structural funds in central and eastern Europe and adequate funds for the Common Agricultural Policy.

There are many issues on which we are aligned, but we were certainly able to discuss in detail issues on which we were not. There were no meetings held with anyone else in Hungary. I met the Prime Minister and then finished for the night and flew on to Bulgaria for further meetings. I did raise the issue of non-governmental organisations, NGOs. Mr. Orbán pointed out that the matter was before the European Court of Justice. Hungary believes it will win the case. One of the things it is pointing out - this may be of interest to Members of this House - is that Ireland has laws which ban NGOs from receiving foreign money for referenda and campaigns. I do not believe it is quite the same thing, but it is interesting that it is part of Hungary's defence. By the way, I did tell Mr. Orbán that I did not think it was the same thing. On university laws, Mr. Orbán pointed out that all of the other foreign universities had accepted the new laws. On the judiciary and the media, he pointed out that those cases were closed as far as the European Commission was concerned. The Commission is satisfied that Hungary has complied and responded to European concerns about judicial and media freedom. I anticipate that Poland will also respond to European concerns, thereby avoiding a situation where we would have to impose sanctions on it. We profoundly disagreed on the issue of migration. We are accepting quotas of refugees, Hungary is not. While we profoundly disagreed on the issue, we did agree that the Dublin Convention system was not working.

To pick up on Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett's comments, he is right. I do believe in engagement and I am not going to depart from that belief. However, I am also not naive in respect of the move away from liberal democracy which is under way in central and eastern Europe. It is something about which I am very concerned. However, I ask the Deputy to avoid double standards. I have heard people from his political movement, if not him, laud the Bolívarian revolution that happened in Venezuela some years ago. We all see what is happening there now. Democracy is being totally undermined and the country is in slow collapse as can be seen in the rise in the incidence of infant mortality.

I am deeply critical of it.

What happened in Venezuela was not that socialism was not implemented properly but that it was implemented to the letter.

No; it was not.