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THE GOVERNMENT IS reviewing when to fly the national flag at half mast over Government Buildings and other Departments when a foreign head of state dies or as a mark of respect.
The half masting of the flag last month following the death of King Adbullah of Saudi Arabia raised some eyebrows, with Ministers and the Taoiseach fielding questions from Deputies on why the action was taken.
A review was initiated mid-January, a spokesperson for the Department of The Taoiseach said.
There were some discrepancies over where the flag was lowered following the death of Abdullah. Responding to questions earlier this month, the Taoiseach said the flag was flown at half mast over Government Buildings, Áras an Uachtaráin, Leinster House, as well as the Departments of Agriculture, Arts, Transport, and Foreign Affairs.
“The decision to half-mast the flag was made in light of advice from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and our Embassy in Riyadh,” Enda Kenny said.
However, despite this being the source of the advice, the Minister for Foreign Affairs said the flag was not flown at half-mast over this Department.
Sinn Féin TD Sean Crowe also picked up on some previous occasions when the flag was not flown at half mast.
In a parliamentary question, he noted that the national flag was not flown at half-mast for the deaths of the President of Malawi, Bingu wa Mutharika, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi, and the President of Zambia, Michael Sata.
He noted that Ireland has close connections with these countries “through the provision of Irish Aid and through having embassies assigned to them.”
The Taoiseach’s response was brief:
My Department is currently reviewing the policy on arrangements for the half masting of the National Flag over Government Buildings.
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The Saudis never lower their own flag to half mast as it contains the Islamic shahada inscription, and would be considered blasphemous.
Does he have Irish roots, if not then no way should we lower the flag for a foreign leader.
Chris, with all thats happened to our country, I’m afraid the lowering our flag has been done years ago and hasnt been raised since.
@ John Rodgers. ….. Then they would have to chop of their own heads.
That is something them very wealthy people are not very keen on, the idea of going to heaven and getting all the virgins seem to be lost on the top echelons out there.
Perhaps it has something to do with having all that cash can buy you all the “virgins” when they come to London and Paris.
They would rathe enjoy these pleasures in this life!!!
It’s mainly the (poor) pesants that yarn appeals to, hence you don’t hear of may rich people named as sucide bombers!
Mind you they dish out the cash afterwards!
Thanks, didn’t know that.
A disgusting despotic and evil man. A terrible example of humanity. His death should be ignored, he was nothing special.
Lower the flag for those slavers…….no way.
Send them a mass card instead……that should get right up their nose.
No we should not have.
No!
Our lot only did it because UK did it,they only did it because of the tens of billion in arms sales.
Who’s that lad.
He is a unelected dictator. Ireland is ment to be a republic. Of course our flag shouldn’t be lowered for someone like that. However I think even devalera didn’t do that when hitler died . Or did he?
Didn’t Dev send a letter of condolences to Germany because Hitler died?
He did. It is natural to feel embarrassed about that in retrospect, but it was not unusual and also done by a few other of the neutral European states at the time. More is made of it than ought to be.
Didn’t he drop the oil price globally
Did they lower their flag when Paddy Hilary, Jack Lynch or Charlie died?
It should of being put higher if that was possible.
He visited the German embassy to give his condolences as would be the protocol
No, these fat slobs would still be shovelling camel sh*t if it wasn’t for oil, they’re two-faced in dealing with terrorists and lend little if any help combating it.
Watch ‘Bitter Lake’. A fantastic BBC documentary by Adam Curtis which wasn’t commissioned for television but available online. A great insight into the Middle East and how it has become the world it is today. It tells the story of how US/UK relations with countries like Saudi and Afghanistan have now created civil unrest and terror within the Islamic States.
Should it have been flown at half-mast? Absolutely not.
King Abdullah was considered a moderate reformer, but progress was painfully slow in an ultra-conservative society. Only a couple of days ago someone was sentenced to death for tearing up a copy of the Koran.
He’s a shi ite muslim
Sunni actually.
The Embassy in Riyadh was best placed to advise. This was not really an act of sympathy rather it was an acknowledgement of the importance of Saudi Arabia for Irish trade and oil supply. The Saudis need this form of affirmation. If the flag had not been lowered maybe the Saudis might have felt condesensioned upon and would not do business with us. They would have noted carefully which countries did not lower their flags to half mast. The gesture said Saudi Arabia is a country that Ireland has a dependence on whereas Saudi Arabia has no particular dependence on Ireland. While we have good relations with the African countries mentioned they have more of a dependency on us than we have on them. It would be interesting to know how many embassies in Riyadh had their flags at half mast!
@Padriag O’Tragedy:
Even though he was a Sunni he’ll always be a Shite.
A Wahabbi to be exact.
As long as he wasn’t a gobshiite!!!!!!
King who? From where? Very ecumenical! Loved the ladies! (Of the harem)
We didn’t lower it for Gaddafi when he was savagely murdered by a mob.
Why should we lower it for this brutal monarch. Human rights abuses, funding of al Qaeda and ISIS but oh wait he sits on a fortune of oil so irrespective of who he funds he’s a good friend of Britain and the US.
NO!
Its about showing respect in order to increase exports to that country.
Do we really want to do more business than the absolutely essential with such a state?
Yeah like that’s what’s important here…Exports!
If we start to ignore the vicious/barbaric acts of this vile regime and turn a blind eye due to ‘Exports’ then what’s the point of us even trying to act moral in our own lives?
Spot on, Fran. If Saudi Arabia didn’t have oil it’d be treated as the backwards, fundamentalist pariah state it is. I hate the double standards that the West applies to barbaric countries such as this built on the back of slave labour, a hub for Islamic terrorists and not to mention their treatment of women over the fact that they have oil. To claim that we should tolerate the way this state acts over exports, money when you break it down, is disgusting.
@barney. It’s actually an insult to their style of Islam. He was buried without any state ceremony in Saudi Arabia. So it was not only morally questionable, but also culturally ignorant.
Exports my arse, my dignity is not for sale. We have precious first class products, we can afford to keep our dignity
You can bend over for them Barney but don’t expect the rest of us to
Vinheffer, I presume you feel the same about China and the USA?
Just stating the obvious, dignity does’nt come into it or morals, we only have to look at ourselves as history repeats itself and we vote fianna Fail back into goverment. If i had any part to play and could land a beef or dairy contract its win win. Any bad feelings are forgotten with time and money.
China’s human rights record is regularly called. The US is a failed state. I wouldn’t look to either of them as guides for anything.
He was the democratically elected leader of a western friendly nation, as a mark of respect for all he did for both parts of this Island it would be a disgrace not to.
Please tell me you are joking ?
Democracy and Saudi Arabia in the same sentence…. I love a laugh in the morning.
He’s just taking the p!ss Stephen
Citizensmith you have really out done yourself on that statement.
He wasn’t western friendly, he simply uses the west because we’re the biggest consumers of oil.
Nobody up for a laugh this Friday I guess
Ah ye need your first tea/coffee first!
I say they seen it as “He might be a son of a bitch…but he’s our son of a bitch”!
Like Dev signing the book of condolence when Hitler died!!!
NFW!!!
Just playing devil’s advocate here but sometimes neutrality involves jumping through certain hoops. Whether it’s sincere or not.
Don’t forget De Valera signed Hitler’s book of condolences.
BS of the highest calibre.
Care to elaborate? All I’m saying is neutrality involves not picking sides. I assume you know what playing devil’s advocate means.
I’ve made my stance abundantly clear on this thread. I’m not in the business of repeating myself.
Clearly not. If this is an invite for me to search through the thread just to find your ramblings I don’t think I’ll be obliging you.
Fine, I’ll indulge you, if only to put your own ramblings to bed.
Comparing this to DeVelara’a handling of the Irish situation during WW2 is not a fair comparison. While I disagree with much of his actions, DeValera felt that Ireland’s neutrality was tantamount, even under great pressure from Churchill to enter the War. It was important to appear that we would intervene on Britain’s behalf; that our neutrality meant something and was to be taken seriously.
Realistically, it’s unlikely that DeValera was aware of Hitter and the Third Reich’s systematic torture and murder of Jewish people, homosexuals, gypsies, Slavs, etc. until Nuremberg.
We as a people are well aware of the the systematic injustices that the Saudi regime has committed, on their own land and in others by extension. As a neutral country, we should never have lowered the flag to halfmast for such a country. The only reason the UK did so is because they’re up to their town halls in deals in weaponry and oil with this terrorist state which is ironic given their widespread condemnation of ISIS and we dutifully followed them in lowering our flag.
Hopefully this will be sufficient in indulging your “playing the devil’s advocate”.
There was no book of condolonces that is bs. Dev called on Hempel nothing more, the press made up the rest assisted by Devs refusal to elaborate.
Only if the Saudis flew theirs at half mast for Charlie Haughey.
Charlie was a kuffar in their eyes, as are we, so don’t expect any reciprocation
Gratitude, and after all Charlie did by selling them Irish Passports when they put money into some Irish businesses. Maybe that jewelled ceremonial dagger was meant to be the payoff instead?
If Saudi Arabia hadn’t got oil the World leaders would have condemned this King for the backward cruel coward he was not forgetting his human rights abuses.
But how many billions in Saudi oil? How many Saudi billions in the US economy?
Ireland most certainly should not lower it’s flag for the likes of this barbaric King.
That headgear looks similar to the top of
a pint of Guinness,now if they stopped making
it,you would definitely need to fly the flag.
If only enough people really knew how the real world works we would be doing well as a society.
What time does Eastenders start?
Is that Stephen Fry?
Well I am not aware that we should show Respect for what this man represents.
A flag is a piece of material .
Wipe your arse with one and see what people say?
ABSOLUTELY not.
No certainly not
Just out of curiosity. .does anyone know if it was lowered when the leader of libya was died?
What, for monsters?
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