I spent half an hour with the Iranian community outside the gates of the Dáil today. It is three months since Mahsa Amini was killed in police custody. The regime made an announcement at the weekend that the morality police had been disbanded. According to those activists, this is utterly untrue. It is propaganda and another young activist was executed by the regime this morning. On behalf of that movement, I ask the Government to express its solidarity with the movement and, in concrete terms, to give a commitment that it will not reopen the embassy in Tehran while the regime continues its brutal onslaught against women, mainly, but also the entire community. That regime is not acceptable and has to go. The Government should express its solidarity in some way, today and in the long term.

The Government expresses its absolute solidarity with the people of Iran who are seeking democracy and human rights and fighting for equality for women, LGBT people and people of all religions. I express our solidarity with them. We raise these issues with the Iranian Government and with the Iranian ambassador to Ireland.

Regarding our plans to reopen an embassy in Tehran, a chargé d'affaires has been appointed and is representing Ireland in Iran from the German embassy. In general, we take the view that it is better to have lines of communication with other countries even if those countries have different values from ours. That is why we have embassies in many parts of the world that are not democratic. We think it is better to be able to talk than not to be able to talk at all. However, the decision on whether we will open a physical embassy in Iran is under review, as the Minister for Foreign Affairs has said.