Padraig Harrington: Blaming Saudi Arabia for 9/11 seems like blaming Ireland for not doing enough to stop the IRA

Earlier this week, Harrington sought to explain the merger of the PGA Tour, DP Tour and LIV Golf despite controversy over Saudi backing with a statement that cited Ireland ‘locking up unmarried mothers as late as 1996’.

Following the merger announcement, a group representing relatives of the victims of the 9/11 attacks said the PGA Tour should be ‘ashamed of their hypocrisy and greed’ in agreeing a deal with Saudi-backed LIV Golf. But speaking today on Liveline, Harrington suggested Saudi Arabia need to adhere to the ‘norms of human rights on their own terms’.

"If I had a magic wand and I could go in and say hey, look we want you to adhere to the norms of human rights, that we all consider to be completely normal, I'd wave that wand, but forcing them to do it would make them backtrack, they have to do it on their own terms,” Harrington told Joe Duffy.

"We'd all love it to happen today but if somebody said in 25 years, like we look back on the Mother and Baby homes, if somebody said in 25 years, hey God look at Saudi Arabia, look what it was like and look at it now. I don't know if that is acceptable to people that it would take 25 years for women to get proper rights. We just can't wave a magic wand right now.”

Harrington also pointed the finger at the British press for how they portrayed the nation of Ireland during the IRA campaign of violence.

"Jimmy Dunne who did this deal, he lost two floors in the twin towers. He lost his friends and the workforce in 9/11," said Harrington.

"Now I don't know enough about this, he has come out and said that terrorists blew up the Twin Towers. So he should know.

"Now, I really have a problem with this because I was in England in the early 90s, and continuously, the gutter press in Britain intermingled Ireland, the Irish government, Irish people and the IRA to blame on the atrocities.

"They made it feel like the Irish people were to blame for the IRA bombings in the UK.

"Now, I know about Ireland - I don't know enough about Saudi Arabia - I can only take Jimmy Dunne's position because he should know.

"But blaming Saudi Arabia and their government seems very much like blaming Ireland for not doing enough to stop the IRA.

"Maybe Saudi Arabia took their eye off the ball. They could never have foreseen what was going to happen.

"If Jimmy Dunne is saying that he doesn't believe the Saudi Arabian government had anything to do with that and that it was Osama Bin Laden and his cohort from Saudi Arabia, that just like how the IRA were Irish people but didn't have the support from the Irish government or Irish people."

Three-time major winner Harrington believes that the PGA Tour were “forced” into the controversial merger because they could be in financial trouble.

“It’s a huge backtrack, a huge U-turn by the PGA Tour. And the likely reason is they were forced into it,” he added.

"There’s a big lawsuit going on. They’re rumoured to be losing half our TV revenues, the PGA tour . . . they could have been in financial turmoil, and they were forced into acting now or later two year’s time and they’ll be in a worse position,” Harrington said.

Harrington added that it was unfortunate that “sports washing does work” but added that people will move on.

“The Saudis have bought Newcastle, nobody stopped watching the players . . . Everybody watched the World Cup, you know.

“Sports washing, unfortunately, does work. Investing in teams like this does work. I can guarantee there’s somebody in Newcastle who thinks more positively right now about Saudi Arabia because they own the team. So it does work and that’s it and Saudi Arabia are free to invest in what they want.

“They’re free to do this. The fact is, they do have a lot of money. If they take an interest in something they can back it for a long time.

“Their goal is to be the hub of the Middle East.”

On his Mother and Baby Homes tweet from earlier this week, Harrington added: "The country I come from had for a long period of time accepted... a young person could be raped in her own home by a family member and she would be imprisoned, effectively institutionalised and the rapist would get away with it. Who knew about that? Authority knew about that, the doctor would have to know about it, the policeman would have to know about it, the policeman would have to tell the judge. Society knew about it and they let it happen."