Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. We will do all we can as a country to try to bring an end to this conflict and to try to ensure there is peace with justice, so that both Israelis and Palestinians can live in secure and viable states. However, we are so far away from that at the moment. The priority now has to be a humanitarian ceasefire so that hostages can be released, so that foreign citizens can leave, so that we can get humanitarian aid in and, most of all, so that the killing can stop. We are using our influence at EU level and UN level to do the best we can to secure that. We have also significantly increased our contribution in terms of humanitarian aid to Palestine. As I said, when it comes to any trade issues, they are European competences and not something we can act on, nor should we act on, alone. The EU position has evolved in the past couple of weeks.

I hope it will evolve again. The main thing we need to get the EU behind, and it is not yet behind, is the call for a humanitarian ceasefire and that will be what we will be pushing at the next meeting of the European Council.

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