President Michael D Higgins has issued a passionate plea for the multi-lateralism that has defined European human rights law for the past 70 years to be strengthened and extended in the face of a catalogue of crises, from the Russian attack on Ukraine to the threat of famine on the Horn of Africa.
President Higgins issued the plea when addressing the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the world's oldest cooperative body on democracy and human rights in Strasbourg.
Ireland currently holds the presidency of the Council's Committee of Ministers.
President of the Parliamentary Assembly Tiny Cox thanked President Higgins for his presence, given the tragic events in Creeslough, Co Donegal.
President Higgins told the Assembly that "multilateralism is today under extreme pressure, we might even say in crisis, with adherence to its values very fragile."
He also said the European Convention on Human Rights was "essential to the effective functioning of the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement in Ireland."
He said the fundamental importance of the human rights' provisions of the Agreement "require an approach that ensures the Convention continues to be fully implemented in Northern Ireland regardless of Britain’s exiting the [European] Union."
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President Higgins will also meet Síofra O'Leary, who will become the first Irish and first female president of the European Court of Human Rights when she takes up her post on 1 November.
The Council of Europe was formed in 1949 following the devastation of World War II.
Along with the European Court of Human Rights it was charged with protecting universal rights and promoting democracy. It currently has 46 members - Russia was expelled earlier this year.
He will return from Strasbourg tonight and travel to Donegal tomorrow, where he will attend the remaining funerals and meet relatives of those killed in Friday's tragedy as well as with members of the emergency services.
