Irish businessman stopped from leaving China.

Already on a flight out according to RTE

While I agree with your view the damage has been done to chinas reputation here they will give zero fecks,my fear with the sudden release is we paid the Chinese a fee to release him

Credit is due to the Dept of Foreign Affairs.

Absolutely delighted for this man and his family!

Nobody seems prepared to give out the fine details of the case so we can make a balanced judgement on why he was being held.

Nothing but emotional drama queens prancing about led of course by the likes of RTE.

The Chinese judicial system is irrelevant in this particular case.

Facts of the matter are that in a lot of countries it's easy to enter but leaving can be subject to all kinds of business and/or political interference.

We still have to maintain relations with these countries which is why Coveney was right to thank the Chinese authorities. One never knows when a similar case will arise.

Not interested in your twisted version.

People were ripped off by the company O'Halloran was involved with.

He seems to accept a responsibility and so did the Irish government..thats how they reached an agreement to pay back the money and O'Halloran was free to leave.

O'Halloran wasn't some innocent nobody grabbed off the street in Shanghai as you and your kind would have us believe!

I think a government with even the slightest hint of what used to be called balls would have got him home a lot sooner , it’s an embarrassment.

Just listened to Senator Michael McDowell SC on morning Ireland and he's not at all happy with the back slapping Narrative. He's livid over the Governments and in particular DOFA handling of this case. He's been involved in this from the outset and is clearly appalled and does not agree in the slightest that it was a Job well done.

He laid out the facts including the point it was infact a Chinese business who is entirely at fault re the fraud and essentially says this was a case of extortion perpetrated by the Chinese government and an Irish citizens human rights were trampled on.

He continued, there was no need for "Quite Diplomacy", Ireland alone may not have had the power to exert pressure but he rightly points out The EU could have been brought in and more alarming, Ireland recently gained a seat on the security Council.

Obviously we may never know the full account of the protracted attempts to release Mr O Halloran, but I for one have to wonder how its taken so long for an entirely innocent Irish citizen to be released and I'm not buying this narrative that the DOFA did all they could to expedite matters, it Would seem to me they were only anxious about upsetting the Chinese government and its disgraceful.

"Obviously we may never know the full account of the protracted attempts to release Mr O Halloran, but I for one have to wonder how its taken so long for an entirely innocent Irish citizen to be released and I'm not buying this narrative that the DOFA did all they could to expedite matters, it Would seem to me they were only anxious about upsetting the Chinese government and its disgraceful."

Innocence is irrelevant to the Chinese and you don't need to be a Senior Council to know possession is everything. The Chinese had possession and pissing them off or putting them in a position where they will lose face by releasing him doesn't appear to me to be a good tactic.

"Coveney didn't need to thank the Chinese at all"

He certainly didn't have to. However if in six months time some other Irish citizen is in a similar situation regarding an exit visa from China the fact that he did could help resolve the matter more quickly. Real politics.

It's about people with responsibility, like Coveney, doing the responsible thing. It's easy for someone like M. McD to criticize when they're not the ones who will have to deal with consequences down the line.

I agree it is good that the Chinese looked after their own people, however the way in which they did it was atrocious, an innocent mans freedom should never have been used as a bargaining chip in this case.

My understanding is China Aviation Leasing Services Ireland are to pay whatever fees they quite rightly owe to their investors

there was criminality involved. there was massive fraud involved. not that I'm saying O'Halloran was involved in the fraud but he was an officer of the company.

a distinction that isn't relevant to the chinese. their citizens were defrauded. they acted to ensure they were compensated. I don't agree with how they acted but that was their motivation. One question though, why didn't he sign that deal 3 years ago? what was stopping him?

well who signed it then?

Which names did you find curious?

That is a curious name, who names their child Dob?

Lucky there's no corruption or strokes ever pulled in our country, not like in China