Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I understand this week's EU summit will be focused on the seven-year EU budget, beginning from 2014. I listened very carefully to what the Taoiseach said on this but before dealing with this issue, I want to ask him to raise the issue of the ongoing violence in the Middle East as an urgent issue and to use his good offices to get an EU intervention. Le blianta beaga anuas, theip ar an phobal idirnáisiúnta cuidiú a thabhairt chun an choimhlint seo a stopadh.

By last night, approximately 130 Palestinian and five Israeli citizens had been killed. Half of those killed in Gaza were women and children. The European Council should not meet without the Taoiseach using Ireland's special status and its experience of our peace process to raise the urgent need for peace in the Middle East. There needs to be an immediate end of armed actions by all the combatant groups. The rocket attacks on Israel should stop and the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip should end immediately, but in the meantime there is an onus on the international community, especially the EU and in particular the Irish Government, to act in a decisive way now before the situation gets worse. The Taoiseach can play a leadership role in this.

It is also vital we are not distracted by unbalanced media reporting that presents this conflict as one between equals, which it is not. I spent a few days in Gaza. The Gaza Strip is a Third World region. It is poor, has been under economic siege for six years and most of its citizens live in poverty and rely on international aid. The Palestinian people have been robbed of their land, imprisoned into ghettoes by separation walls and borders, and have little power or influence.

A UN report before this recent violence stated that by 2020, there will be virtually no reliable access to safe drinking water and no reliable electricity for the people of the Gaza Strip. Some 80% of the citizens there are totally dependent on international aid and more than one million are refugees. Israel, by comparison, is a first world, highly developed, rich and heavily armed super-state with nuclear weapons.

The international experience, and the main lessons from the Irish peace process, are clear. Refusing to engage in dialogue, demonising opponents, treating them as non-citizens, stripping them of their rights, entitlements, self-esteem and integrity as human beings, and engaging in censorship and vilification makes war inevitable and peace more difficult to achieve. It is clear from our experience as a people that real peace, and the process, must be inclusive, based on dialogue and equality, and all sides must respect the right of citizens to elect or select their representatives.

I ask the Taoiseach to ensure this issue is considered by EU leaders at this summit. The Government should also use its influence and its new membership of the UN Human Rights Council to raise the current hostilities, the denial of sovereign as well as human rights to the Palestinian people and the six-year illegal blockade of Gaza by the Israeli Government.

In respect of the proposals to cut the EU budget, Sinn Féin believes that where there are areas of waste in the EU budget, they need to be tackled and eradicated. However, we believe that EU leaders should be looking at ways to redirect the funds available into infrastructural and job creation programmes. Sinn Féin is opposed to reductions in the EU budget which would result in cuts to farm payments, cuts to investment in much needed infrastructure, cuts to training funds for the unemployed and cuts to investment in innovation. It is essential the Taoiseach demands that money from the EU budget is ring-fenced for jobs and growth. We need to go beyond the rhetoric on this issue.

One of the vital aspects for Ireland, by which I mean the entire island of Ireland and not just this State, of the new EU budget will be its impact on farming and the agrifood sector. Tá na hearnálacha seo chomh tábhachtach do eacnamaíocht na hÉireann. The Government needs to get the best CAP deal possible because a prosperous agrifood sector, which is the fastest growing sector of our economy, can play a significant part in economic recovery across the island. We need to get serious about protecting our agrifood sector and a healthy CAP is the way to go about this. We also need to move towards a more equitable system of farm payments that would keep struggling farm families on the land.

The Government came back to the Dáil in June trumpeting a deal on legacy bank debt by October. October has come and gone and we are as far away as ever from a deal on our legacy bank debt. The Taoiseach also told us that he did not raise the issue of the bank debt during his recent meeting with Angela Merkel on 1 November. That was a mistake. The State's debt-to-GDP ratio is due to peak at more than 120% of GDP in 2013. By that stage one in every five euros raised in tax will be going to pay off interest on this debt. Approximately 40% of this debt is bad banking debt which the Taoiseach's Government and Fianna Fáil placed on the shoulders of Irish citizens. It is not sustainable and we cannot pay it, so it needs to be removed. This will only be achieved if the Government faces up to this issue. If we are to get a deal on Ireland's bank debt, the Taoiseach needs to change tack and start standing up for Ireland's interests at these summits.

There appears to be an ongoing dispute between the IMF and the EU over how to bring debt levels in Greece under control. For two weeks now EU Finance Ministers and international officials have failed to reach agreement on this issue. This continuing uncertainty - the Taoiseach reflected this in his remarks - added to by the downgrading of France by Moody's rating agency, does nothing to restore confidence in European leaders' ability to deal with the debt crisis.

We wish the Taoiseach luck but he will need more than luck. The Taoiseach will need to show leadership, raise the essential issue of the conflict in the Middle East and stand up for our interests in these other matters.

See this speech in context