Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am disappointed with the Tánaiste's answer, and he did not answer my two questions either. Did he raise the plight of the people of Yemen and the threat of starvation this week at the Foreign Affairs Council or did he just talk about the journalist? I am amused that the journalist is getting such coverage and the ordinary people of Yemen are being starved to death.

It has been established by an independent body that the majority of the bombing in Yemen has hit non-military targets. They are literally bombing food supplies now in order to starve the people. Whatever about what is going on in Yemen among the different parties in terms of who should be running the country, the bombing has to stop. The Tánaiste spoke about humanitarian aid. Give us a break. The people who are giving humanitarian aid are the same people providing the bombs. Representatives of Médicines Sans Frontiéres were before the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade today. War is a self-sustaining industry. We have the Germans, the French, the British and the United States providing the bombs. The same people who are bombing hospitals are providing funding to rebuild them, thereby creating work. It is a little like Halliburton making more money in Iraq than some of the bomb makers who dropped the bombs in the first place that caused the destruction. Providing humanitarian aid is not a solution. Stopping the bombing must be the start of a solution. Ireland should be fighting this at a European level.

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