Comments made by Irish MEP Mick Wallace about a bishop detained by the Nicaraguan regime have been dubbed “inexcusable” and “reckless” by an Irish missionary.

The European Parliament motion on Nicaragua, which decried the arrest of Bishop Rolando Álvarez and the “repression” of the Church in the country under authoritarian leader Daniel Ortega, passed by more than 500 votes.

Mr Wallace was one of the few MEPs who voted against the motion. In the debate he alleged that Bishop Álvarez – a hugely popular critic of repression by the regime – was “heavily involved” in what he claimed was a CIA-backed coup in Nicaragua in 2018 which led to “death and destruction”.

However, Jesuit missionary Fr Kevin O’Higgins SJ – who spent decades in Central America working for justice and has been working to highlight the crisis in Nicaragua – challenged Mr Wallace to produce “any kind of evidence” for the assertion, and added that he thought the intervention was “embarrassing”.