Ms Hilary Minch:

In response to Deputy Durkan's valid point about what else we can do, I was talking to my eight year old niece, telling her in very simple terms about Palestine. She was looking at a picture I had. Her answer was: "Could they just not stop taking the homes?" Essentially, she was asking could they just not end the occupation. There is a solution available. Israel needs to end its occupation of Palestine. If it is not going to do this willingly, which clearly it is not, we, the Irish people and the Government, and the EU have so many things we can do to put pressure on Israel. There is the EU-Israel association agreement, and the banning of settlement goods at the very least. At UN level, the UN Security Council should have acted, and it will not, for reasons we understand. I agree there is no peace process. The longer the talks go on, the more land Israel appropriates and the worse the situation becomes for Palestine. It is a horrendous situation. I do not want us to be back here in two years time, still talking about the empty peace process and the lack of freedom and human rights for Palestinians. There are so many mechanisms at our disposal and we should be using them, talking to our MEPs and talking to the other governments in Europe. We should also be acting unilaterally on the settlement goods and the recognition of Palestine.