Michael D. supported the communist regime of Nicaragua.
Michael D., Irish Times, November 10, 1984, defends Nicaragua, and says the elections that the communists won were fair. He describes Nicaragua as "a pluralist democracy".
Higgins describes Nicaragua as "a small country that has recently thrown off the shackles of dictatorship ... In every sphere - health, education, welfare, housing - its achievements have been enormous. It is a society which is transforming itself.". He promotes the idea of inviolable state sovereignty: "In international law we have signed covenants that recognise the integrity of national territory, that accept sovereignty. Under international law the belligerence of the statements being made against Nicaragua are outrageous." He asks for "support for this democracy that may not exist should we ignore the challenges which are there to it now ... so that we might save people who have established democracy in the wake of the cruellest dictatorship of the century."
Michael D. quotes the communist dictator Castro in the Dail, 2 February, 1999: "I recall making a documentary in Rio during the United Nations conference on economics and development when the most moving statement was made by Fidel Castro in a short speech. He said: "Let us pay the debt to humanity before the debt to the banks." Regardless of whether one agrees with him, it explicitly put the right to life expressed internationally above the right to debts.".
Michael D.'s response to 9/11 - "rather than seeking to demonise, we have to try, however painful and difficult it may be, to seek to understand".
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