Denis O’Brien, the Irish businessman who founded telecommunications company Digicel, is among members of a Caribbean delegation in Europe next week to discuss slavery reparations.

While he remains a shareholder and a director of Digicel, Mr O’Brien was famously ousted from his chairmanship in January 2024, as part of a debt restructuring deal where he ceded majority control of the company.

But he founded The Repair Campaign, a social movement dedicated to securing reparatory justice for the Caribbean after 20 years of significant business interests in the region.

The campaign aims to amplify Caribbean voices, promote meaningful dialogue and produce evidence-based plans to address the lasting impacts of slavery and colonialism.

A campaign media statement said that leaders in the reparations movement from across the Caribbean region will travel for a series of political engagements.

Meetings will begin in Brussels on Tuesday, when the delegation will brief Members of the European Parliament from across the continent. The Repair delegates will travel to London the next day to meet with UK Parliamentarians.

The statement said: “The visit comes amid rising calls from Caribbean governments for the UK and other European nations to engage with formal demands for reparations for slavery and its enduring impacts across the region.”

The campaign has organised the European trip, guided by the Caribbean Community’s ten point plan for reparatory justice.

The Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies at the University of the West Indies has been engaged to develop 15 country-specific reparatory justice plans to address the enduring effects of slavery and colonialism.

Others in the delegation include:

• Professor Don Marshall, university director of the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies, UWI

• Halimah Deshong, UWI

• Professor Jean Marie Théodat, director of the Caribbean delegation of the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie, a federation of more than 700 universities worldwide, and also a member of Haiti’s National Committee for Restitutions and Reparations (attending for the Brussels engagements only)

• Uriel Sabajo, member of the National Reparations Commission of Suriname

• Carla Astaphan, chair of the National Reparations Commission for St Kitts and Nevis (attending for the London engagements only)

• Michael Banner, author, dean and fellow of Trinity College, University of Cambridge

• Fiona Compton, artist and Caribbean historian, founder of Know Your Caribbean, an online platform for Caribbean history and culture worldwide, with a global monthly reach in the millions