Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will go over and back with my questions because the answers to one question may negate the need for another. At the outset, I will state that what happened on Saturday and the actions of Hamas were absolutely deplorable, unjustifiable and should be condemned unequivocally by all right-thinking people. Hamas breached several international laws on Saturday and the primacy of international law and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights should be the basis of the Irish response to all of this. Does the Minister of State agree that the Commission overreached? I refer to the statement of one Commissioner regarding stalling development aid to the Palestinian Authority, a body which has as little as anybody else to do with Hamas, but also regarding the actions of the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and her biased, I would argue, partisan remarks on the conflict as well as her decision to project the flag of a state which at that moment was engaged in the bombing of a civilian area in Gaza. Does the Minister of State agree that this was an overreach on the part of the Commission and has the Irish Government conveyed that view to the Commission?