Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Today is a great day for Ireland but it is also a great day for Palestine because the motion will not be opposed. While some people have been spinning to say the motion is not binding, I do not see how a Government could not support the motion and its effects into the future. It is a challenge for us as Opposition Members but it is also a challenge for the Government in particular to live up to what is contained in the motion.

On 21 January 1919 An Chéad Dáil met down the road in the Mansion House. Three main things happened on the day. There was a declaration of freedom, of independence. The document was read out in Irish first, French second and English third. That was followed by a democratic programme which, again, was announced in the three languages. The final document, which is often forgotten about, is the message to the free nations of the world. The Irish State, as founded on that morning, called on all free nations in the world to recognise it. Three emissaries were appointed by the Dáil to attend the peace conference in Versailles to argue the case for Irish independence and for the new Irish nation state to be recognised. Those emissaries were Eamon De Valera, Arthur Griffith and George Plunkett.

What we are doing today is living up to a commitment that we sought of other nations on behalf of the Palestinian people who have asked for help for many years. They have asked us as a small nation - they have asked every other nation also - to recognise their state and to give them the same status we enjoy. Not having such status means they do not have a full seat at the UN. I hope that through our actions today they will be a lot closer to their goal. Not only that, but that they can give full effect to their independence. I hope that when their independence is under attack by Israel, as it has been for many decades, or when the Israelis bombard Gaza, as happened earlier this year, that we as a nation will stand up and declare a boycott of Israel, its goods, services and representatives. I hope we will demand that sanctions will be taken against Israel.

I also hope that the EU, a club of which we are a member, will not play games with Israel and that the old consensus is over, whereby one was told not to raise the issue in case the Germans, Czechs or others might get upset. The view that we had to take a consensus approach is gone once and for all. We should have been the nation within Europe that set the example for the rest of the European nations. It is a pity we were not. The Swedes and others have got there ahead of us. However, now we can set an example by reaching out to those states who have already recognised the Palestinian state in order to set the agenda in Europe and to recognise what has happened to the Palestinian people in the past while Europe and Ireland in the main sat back and did nothing.

It is a great day for organisations such as the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, IPSC, SADAKA - the Ireland Palestine Alliance, Gaza Action Ireland, Trócaire, the Irish Friends of Palestine and the likes of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel, EAPPI, and friends of mine who were in Gaza, Jenny and Derek Graham, who have been fighting for Palestine to be put centre stage and for us as a small nation to recognise what they have gone through for years.

I would love to have much more time to regale the House with what I saw when I visited Gaza, Palestine and the West Bank but I will conclude by saying that I am one of the last people who got a stamp from Gaza free port. One cannot go into Gaza from the sea or from the air. That is a denial of the rights of the Palestinian nation. I hold that passport dear to me because it has a stamp in and out. I was one of the last people who broke the siege and managed to get in. The siege is illegal and must be lifted straight away. Part of the process is to recognise their nationhood and the state of Palestine.

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