Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Paul Murphy.

I primarily wish to raise the matter of the very worrying things happening in Israel, both in terms of its treatment of Palestinians and its wider stance in the region, in particular in terms of Iran, which I believe should be discussed at the European Council but was not addressed by the Taoiseach in his speech.

On taxation, without getting into great detail, it is extremely disappointing that the Taoiseach stated that the Government supports the moves towards reforming the corporate tax regime when everybody knows the situation is absolutely unacceptable in terms of tax avoidance structures in both the digital economy and some other big firms. A person contacted me recently in regard to Paddy Power, the C&C Group and other companies that have subsidiaries in tax havens, yet the Government still holds out against tackling such practices. The Taoiseach has gone so far as to congratulate Donald Trump while in the United States for reducing tax on corporations. He essentially suggested that we have something in common with Trump's economic policies, which, to my mind, is pretty deplorable when one considers the agenda of the American President.

The issue of Israel should be raised at the European Council. The Israeli admission in the past 24 hours that it carried out an attack in 2007 on what it claimed was a Syrian nuclear reactor is rightly being interpreted across the world as a very worrying warning of a ratcheting up of the situation and a possible threat against Iran. The logic is that the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the American President, Donald Trump, wish to dismantle the nuclear arrangements with Iran and this admission of a previous attack suggests that they are willing to engage in military attacks if Iran is developing any kind of nuclear capability. That is very worrying.

That must be considered alongside the Trump and Netanyahu axis in terms of the recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, which is a direct insult to the Palestinians, and also in the context of a series of United Nations reports in recent weeks that show a very serious ratcheting up of illegal settlements by Israel in east Jerusalem and Area C of the West Bank. One of the reports suggests that children have been most affected by what is going on there. Hundreds of children are being held in administrative detention without trial or having been convicted of anything. Twelve members of the elected Palestinian Legislative Council are in prison. Parliamentarians are protected everywhere else in the world but in Israel those representatives are rotting in prison. Nine of them are in administrative detention without having been convicted or tried. The UN is not a radical left wing think tank and we should take what it says seriously. It has stated that Israel is flouting UN resolutions at every level and is denying services to Palestinians in areas it is annexing in east Jerusalem and in the expanding settlements in Hebron. It has further stated that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is reaching emergency proportions.

Nothing is said or done and no action is taken by the European Union. If any other country took such actions, there would be outrage and condemnation but we say and do nothing and continue to treat Israel as if it is any other state while it essentially threatens other states in the region with military action, which would be a disaster, is doing unspeakable things in terms of its treatment of Palestinians and is becoming more aggressive, bold and audacious in its actions, all of which are encouraged by Donald Trump. Are those matters of concern to the Taoiseach or the European Council? Does the Taoiseach think we should be saying anything about them? Does he think the European Union should impose sanctions on Israel, which keeps edging forward in its blatant disregard for the most elementary provisions of human rights law, UN resolutions or respect for civilised behaviour in the region or world?

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