Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Cathaoirleach. When I was 13, my parents bought me The Diary of A Young Girlby Anne Frank. It is something I have always treasured. It was the first time I really learned about man's inhumanity to man. Coincidentally, I was the same age as Anne Frank was when she started writing her diary. I felt I could identify with a lot of what she was talking about. Obviously, I could not comprehend what she was going through. I asked all of the adults in my life, "How could this happen?" They all said that nobody knew what was happening.

Many years later, I visited Dachau and Auschwitz and again asked the question, "How could this happen?" Again, the answer was that people did not know what was happening and if they knew, it would not happen. Many years later, I lived in a kibbutz in Israel for a few months. The kibbutz was founded by Holocaust survivors and named for Mordechai Anielewicz, a Polish Jew. I met survivors and worked with them. I found myself saying that the Holocaust would never have happened if the world had known about it.

Here we are, 82 years later and this is happening on our watch. On Holocaust day, which should always be recognised and commemorated, we use the term, "Lest We Forget". Here we have another Holocaust and it is happening on our watch. We cannot say that we did not know about it. Children, by accident of their birth, have no future. They are lucky if they have a few weeks or months. If Israel does what it is threatening to do in terms of bombing another small part of Gaza to where all of the Palestinians have fled there is no hope.

I thank the Tánaiste for his principled approach to this from day one and the leadership he has shown, not just from the Government but across Europe and the world. I had the opportunity to speak about this in the Council of Europe. We had a very lively debate on what it should do as a human rights organisation. I was quite shocked and horrified by the attitude of a lot of our European neighbours, who are members of a human rights organisation in Europe. The actions the Tánaiste has taken and everything he has spoken about are 100% what we need to do. In his contribution he spoke about the important voice Ireland has to show hope and shine a light, and that is what he is doing. I commend him and wish him well in this arduous journey.