Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein)

It is welcome that the Taoiseach raised the issue of Bahrain at the European Council but that does not go far enough. The situation in Bahrain has caused great alarm to many in the medical profession in Ireland. The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland has refused to condemn the arrest and detention of doctors, who were not only trained and are fellows of the RCSI but served as interns in Irish hospitals. Those doctors in Bahrain have been arrested and detained for carrying out the duties of their profession in accordance with the hippocratic oath. It is an outrage and an insult to the medical profession across the world and yet - I can only assume this - because the RCSI and others do very serious business in Bahrain, with an investment of €60 million and hundreds of trainees and staff, the RCSI refuses to speak out against this outrage. It spreads further, because the Sunni minority in Bahrain who rule that state in cahoots with Sunni colleagues in nearby kingdoms, which are not democracies, put together militia to keep down the democratic rights and entitlements of the Shia majority. Not so long ago, the Shia majority in Bahrain was 70% of the population, but that has decreased to 60% because of the strategic migration of emigrants to close down that number.

What is happening in Bahrain is a profound embarrassment to the Irish State. Our President together with a former Taoiseach opened the colleges in Bahrain and we have not done enough to make it clear that what is being done in the kingdom in an insult to democrats and an outrage to doctors across the world. I implore the Government to do much more than to ask the powers in Bahrain to do this.

I will now address the issues in Palestine and Gaza. We have a statement from the European Council that refers to the situation in Gaza, which remains of concern. Humanitarian assistance delivered to the population in Gaza should be in accordance with the relevant framework and decisions of the UN and should take care not to endanger human lives, which is I presume a response to the flotilla which is on its way to break the naval blockade and the wider blockade. The international community and the UN should hang their heads in shame because there have been repeated UN resolutions on the wider issue of Palestine and demands that the Israeli state immediately cease its illegal blockade and imprisonment of the Palestinian people who have to live in Gaza and endure an existence in that place.

Let me read some of the statistics, of which I know the Taoiseach is aware. I acknowledge that the Taoiseach visited the people and I am sure he must have been moved to hear the stories and see it at first hand. More than 70% of nine month old children in Gaza are anaemic, 13.2% of the children in Gaza suffer irreversible stunted growth, 66% of households in Gaza are food insecure and 75% of the Gaza population rely on humanitarian food assistance. That is a shocking statistic. There are dangerous shortages of medical supplies in Gaza's hospitals and 1,500 were murdered, the vast majority of whom were innocent civilians, by the Israeli state. Where is the consistency? We have a UN resolution against Libya to protect the Libyan people, which is immediately enacted by NATO and the international military forces. We have the same put to the Israeli state, where they murder and imprison those people in the state, and nothing is done to enforce the resolution. They get away with murder.

A call has been sent out to civic society internationally to assist Palestine. The Palestinian people are a proud people and what they need is freedom, to have their dignity respected, the ability to be able to export and to have a proper existence. Because the international community has refused to carry out its own resolutions, and has stood idly by, as tragically happened on this island at one time, we now have a situation where peace activists are imploring the international community to inspect its ships and to verify the cargo. Some ships are carrying passengers but the vast bulk of the cargo is humanitarian aid, thousands of tonnes of it. Our Government, the UN Secretary General and the EU, having failed to act to protect the interests of the people of Gaza, are now saying to those courageous peace activists that they cannot do anything either. Not only will they not act, those who decide to act and put their own lives at risk are told they will not be protected. These international bodies will not tell the Israeli state to clear the path and to permit the landing of this aid; they will not even verify the cargo on the ship to demonstrate that there are no weapons on board.

What are the people of Gaza to do? Who will help them? Who will hold up international law against the Israeli state? Here is the difficulty. Ordinary people, NGOs and every human rights organisation worth its salt has said the blockade and the hijacking of boats on international waters are illegal acts. These actions are repugnant to international law and decency but that is ignored.

Irish citizens are joining courageous citizens from other nations to do the right thing by the people of Gaza. If there is to be consistency and we are to retain international goodwill, we must ensure the resolution of this situation and ensure that the aid gets through. The Israeli state must be confronted on its illegality and its terror once and for all.

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