Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise an issue that happened at the weekend, namely, the demolition of Khirbet a-Rakeez, a small village in the south Hebron hills. B'Tselem, the Israeli anti-occupation human rights NGO, provided video footage of the Israeli military bulldozing a series of houses that had been funded by the international protection consortium, the EU and Irish Aid. This is not the first time we have seen demolition of EU-funded structures as part of the ongoing occupation of Palestine.

The south Hebron hills is a particularly sensitive area. There is a network of approximately 30 villages that are under constant threat. They have seen a near complete ban on construction and the repeated demolition of roads, houses, water cisterns and other buildings. Breaking the Silence, another Israeli NGO, published a series of testimonies from Israeli soldiers detailing the brutality of the military occupation of this area. At the same time we have seen an explosion in the number of settlements, illegal outposts and wildcat settlements in the area that are putting significant pressure on what many commentators are calling a slow motion population transfer of Palestinians out of that area and Israelis into it. Both the demolitions and the population transfer are grave breaches of international law obligations under the Geneva Convention.

This is Irish Aid taxpayers' money that has gone in to try to provide some sort of support to the Palestinians living in the south Hebron hills whose villages are being demolished. We need to use this EU summit, as we do others, to demand that there is compensation for these demolitions. If we are building humanitarian structures, housing and providing solar panels and they are being confiscated or destroyed, we should be looking for compensation for them. We cannot allow the impunity regarding breaches of international law to continue. Until we stand up to them and demand consequences for them, that is exactly what will happen. We are talking now about international law, Brexit, the UK's actions and how international law must be protected and upheld but if we are not willing to uphold it for others and to demand that others adhere to international law, what right do we have to seek the refuge of international law? This is an incredibly important issue, both for the furtherance of international law in general but also with respect to Irish taxpayers' money that has gone to fund aid structures that are now demolished and are simply rubble. This is an ongoing issue in the area and across Palestine and is one on which our Government needs to demand more action from our EU counterparts.

I raise the issue of Brexit and environmental concerns. We have talked a good deal about the level playing field but it is important to stress that one of the key issues is that the vast majority of Britain's environmental legislation comes from EU sources. If that gap is not closed as part of that level playing field, we will see a serious deterioration. That will affect us on this island because as I have said previously in this Chamber, nature does not give a damn about a line on a map or any sort of hard or soft border. We are one island with one biosphere and if we are seeing a degradation and a deterioration in environmental standards North of the Border, we will be in a lot of trouble here in the South also. It will impact on our farmers' ability to compete on a level playing field but it will also have much wider and detrimental impacts on Irish farming in general.

If we are discussing EU-Africa relationships, while I have spoken about an occupation at one end of the Mediterranean Sea, we have an occupation at the other end in terms of Morocco and Western Sahara. My hope is that through our position on the United Nations Security Council we can try to move the process forward. The EU, as a neighbour, through its Euro-Mediterranean agreements and its Africa relations, needs to play a role here. We need to raise the ongoing occupation and the transfer of population in the settlements within Western Sahara as much as we do the ongoing illegal occupation of Palestine.

Many Deputies spoke about the importance of human rights and standing up for democracy. While that is true in the EU, we must also look at ourselves We still need to demand that of our neighbours and of those we trade with, particularly those who claim the name "democracy". I hope the Taoiseach and the Minister of State can raise those very important issue.

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