Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The US has delivered cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia, some of them through Shannon Airport, to be used in Yemen. The bombs are still legal in the US, but it has different laws. There is international law and American law and they are very different.

When will we take a neutral position? We cannot stay silent when one side is doing something bad and wait until the other side does something bad. Let us be straight. Let us stop using Shannon Airport, a civilian airport, as a military airport. Let us stop being complicit in the murder of civilians and in the creation of refugees. When arms, munitions and troops go through Shannon Airport, some of the munitions are bombs which are dropped on people's homes, making them flee their land and communities and end up in Europe as refugees. We then do not want to let them in, even though we let the Americans in to use Shannon Airport in the first place.

This is a small nation. We could play a positive role as a neutral country.

We could say "No" to what the Americans or Russians are doing. What about Palestine and Israel? How can we be so silent about the destruction of Palestine and the genocide that is taking place there? That is what it is. There is so much silence in here from the established parties on it.

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