Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael)

I welcome our guests and my former colleague from college. It is good to see you again. It is worth saying at the outset that we are individually and collectively horrified by the genocide in the form of the bombing and the starvation and indeed the recent spate of illegal settlements in the West Bank. The focus on the West Bank has naturally been lost a bit, but that is a horror too. I have been saying all this repeatedly as my party's foreign affairs spokesperson in the Seanad over many years and at plenary and committee meetings of the Council of Europe on occasions when I am one of the Irish representatives. That is all on the record.

I have some questions for Dr. Nuseibah before I turn to Ms Mahony, if I may. I do not mind if they both wish to answer. First, Dr. Nuseibah used the term “jus cogens norms” that are binding on states.