Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

This week, the world expressed its horror, revulsion and outrage at the barbaric treatment of children by the Trump Administration at the US-Mexico border and the horrific practice of separating thousands of minors from their parents. It seems that the revulsion both in the US and across the world, including from this House, has forced President Trump to make something of a U-turn, although as thousands of children still remain in custody we will see what happens and I still will attend the protest at the US embassy this evening.

My question, and I am glad the Tánaiste is here to respond, is whether we are going to be consistent in expressing our outrage and revulsion at abuse and barbaric treatment of children because, of course, the place where this has gone on year in and year out for at least the past 20 years and which is probably the most dangerous place in the world to be a child is Gaza and the Palestinian territories, where the facts of the abuse, murder and imprisonment of children and the denial of basic rights, resources and supports by Israel in a cruel, calculated and deliberate way is simply shocking beyond belief. One Palestinian child has been killed every three days on average for the past 18 years by members of the Israeli military. In the past few weeks, 14 children have been killed and more than 1,000 injured by the Israeli military in Gaza. There are approximately 350 children in prison at present, some of whom have received sentences of up to ten years. The horror just goes on. The Save the Children organisation says that about 90% of children in Gaza are suffering psychological trauma as a result of the various Israeli offensives over the past number of years and that about 78% of children in Gaza cannot sleep at night properly because of a fear of attacks by the Israeli military and war planes.

At what point do we express outrage and revulsion at this and do something about it? Nelson Mandela's grandson recently said that Israel's apartheid was worse than that practised in South Africa and called for the boycott of Israel, as did his grandfather, Nelson Mandela, and Desmond Tutu. What are we going to do about the barbaric treatment of children by Israel? Will we join in the call to at the very least boycott the Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv next year in order that we do not give legitimacy to a regime that treats children in such a barbaric fashion using the ultimate form of separation, namely, killing and imprisoning children and denying them the most basic rights and entitlements?

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