Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to get a chance to talk and be united with everyone else in the Chamber. We are all calling for peace. No matter how long a war goes on, it has to finish. It would be much better, however, if it finished sooner rather than later. What happened last night, with a hospital being blown to smithereens and more than 500 patients killed in it, is horrible and disastrous.

This country suffered for 700 or 800 years and had an awful fight to get our own self-determination. The one thing I have seen around the hills and glens where I have done contracting work, and it reminds me every day, are the ridges of Garrane that were sat by people at that time. They never dug them because they starved with the hunger when the blight took their crop, while at the same time we had plenty of produce, including beef and grain, going across the water as people here starved. They died one way or another.

What is happening is terrible when children and babies have no water or food, or shelter from incoming bombs and missiles. They are in a terrible way and cannot get out. They are cornered like a rat or anything inside a hole. They cannot get out. Corridors must be opened up to let medicines and doctors in and to ensure these people are treated humanely. It is desperate what is going on. We can do little in the Chamber only ask the greater powers to raise the bar, get stuck into this thing, and ensure it is called off as soon as possible. As I said, all wars have to end. It is terrible what is happening to the innocent. This is not a fair war at all. We know that Hamas looked for it and caused it. Hamas must be rooted out, although I do not know how it can be because it is entrenched. We are all calling for peace.

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