Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy has read comments made by a number of Ministers in the Israeli Government. On the one hand, I suppose one might say they are all on-message. I find that message regrettable and most unhelpful. I do not agree with those statements. When I met Prime Minister Netanyahu briefly in Paris, I said to him that when I had an opportunity to go to Gaza a number of years ago with a delegation from here, I found the situation completely intolerable. I told him that I am a strong supporter of the two-state solution and that peace is always possible. I reminded him of the example offered by a small country like Ireland, where people were able to sit down and work out their differences after 30 years of violence, with the result that lives have been saved and a fragile but stable peace situation, which has to be worked on constantly, has been put in place.

4 o’clock

I do not agree in any way with the statements Deputy Boyd Barrett has read out. They are not part of the philosophy of a democratic government working to bring about peace. That is what I think of those statements and that is what I said to the Prime Minister when I met him.

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