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

I have never subscribed to the two-state solution when it comes to Palestine because it codifies and institutionalises the ethnic and religious partition of people, specifically Jewish people and Palestinian people, in a way that I do not think we would accept anywhere else, not least on this island. I do not accept it. Setting aside that debate, and the fact the two-state solution is falling apart anyway because of Israel's complete flouting of every elementary aspect of international law on human rights with regard to the Palestinians, what does the Taoiseach say in seeking nomination for Ireland to the UN Security Council about UN Resolution 194, which deals with the right of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return to the homes from which they were expelled and to recover the property lost when they were expelled, whether in 1948 or 1967? In answering this question, the Taoiseach should consider the appalling conditions of refugees in camps in Beirut. I was there in July and it was absolutely shocking and worse then what we would see in the West Bank, Jordan or Syria. As the Taoiseach seeks to get Ireland onto the UN Security Council, do these refugees have a right, as those on the Great March of Return demanded, to have that UN resolution vindicated and be returned to their homes in what is now called Israel? If the Taoiseach does not believe this, his aspiration to be on the UN Security Council is meaningless because it is completely selective in its implementation of its own resolutions when it comes to the Palestinians.

Will the Taoiseach look at UN Resolutions 55 and 56, which deal with the Kimberley process and conflict diamonds? This is a process which the EU will chair and there will be a meeting from 12 to 16 November where reforms of the Kimberley process will be discussed. There is a big demand in this regard by those who support the Palestinian people, and the Palestinian people themselves, because of Israel's flouting of international law, its suppression of Palestinian rights, its continuous use of violence, which we saw most recently against the Great March of Return and the killing of approximately 170 people, its use of administrative detention and the shocking national law passed by Netanyahu recently that states Israeli Palestinians no longer have the right to self-determination - another tenet of international law - in Israeli territory. Will the Taoiseach champion this demand, that Israel is suspended from the Kimberley process and that its diamonds, in which there is a massive trade that finances the Israeli military, are suspended from the Kimberley process and labelled conflict diamonds as they absolutely are?

I will allow Deputy Ryan to ask a short question.

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