Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

The Minister is aware that nine activists were brutally killed in last year's flotilla by the Israeli forces in an attack that was rightly condemned by the House in an all-party motion. It condemned the Israeli assault on the first peace flotilla and, rightly, described the blockade of Gaza by Israel as an illegal act, yet the blockade continues and continues to visit appalling suffering on the people of Gaza.

The refusal of the Israeli authorities to allow water treatment plants and sewerage treatment plants to be constructed means that 80 million litres of sewage is being pumped into the Mediterranean Sea on a daily basis. A total of 85% of the waters around Gaza which belong to the people of Gaza are restricted and Palestinians trying to enter those waters are shot at regularly, as well as the ongoing humanitarian crisis and the destruction of the infrastructure in that territory as a result of the previous Israeli attack.

The reason I remind the House of those facts is because it is in that context that one must ask what is changing to make the situation better. The Tánaiste and this House said it is an illegal blockade, that we want it to end, that the suffering should end, that the attack on the previous flotilla should not have happened and should not be repeated. However, nothing happens. Israel is not sanctioned and its behaviour does not change. In that context is it not right and justified that people of good conscience from dozens of countries across the world would try to breach that blockade to bring aid and solidarity to the people of Gaza because it is an illegal blockade and they need that assistance?

I know the Tánaiste is not doing it for the same reasons but in calling on people not to go, he is echoing what Israel is now calling for in saying it does not want the flotilla to travel. I call on the Tánaiste to insist that the Israeli authorities allow the flotilla through the illegal blockade.

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