Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his contribution. I strongly condemn the scenes of violence being inflicted on Palestinian people in their own territories. Settler violence is the inevitable outcome of occupation. There has never been a time in human history when the illegal occupation or annexation of one territory by another has been accepted. A state should not use violence as a means of enforcing its will. This week, once again, we watched that violence being inflicted on Palestinian people in their own territory. This week, once again, we lamented and expressed solidarity and support, but still, we are not going to take action to match those words.

I wish to speak once again about the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill 2018. It is an issue that I know my party and Fine Gael disagree on. The Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill was agreed across this Chamber. The Minister's partners in government, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party, supported it. It was in Fianna Fáil's programme for government, as it was in the programme of government of the Green Party. People in the Chamber held up the Bill as the means by which Ireland would say that no more would we accept what we came to call annexation. The Bill is means of demonstrating that if we watch the scenes that are happening in occupied territories, we will not make ourselves complicit by saying that we strongly condemn them, but yet continue to do business as usual. For me, the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill is the means by which we can send out the strongest message that we will not be complicit in this violence and we will take a stand.

The Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill is one that I believe the Minister feels breaches EU law, despite the fact that numerous legal experts across the EU have held that this is not the case. To demonstrate real solidarity and take action showing leadership throughout the world, the Minister should bring the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill back to this Chamber, or at least outline to us the legal advice and opinion by which he has decided that the Bill breaches EU law, and publish that advice.

There is another issue I wish to raise. The derogation of the six NGOs has already been discussed. Two of those NGOs received funding from the Irish Government. They have now been labelled as terrorist organisations. I imagine that we strongly disagree with that. We should take action to demonstrate our disagreement. I am very conscious that those six organisations, including the two that received funding from the Irish Government, are now under considerable threat of violence, as they work in Israel and Palestine at the minute, at the hands of vigilante groups. The cost of running these NGOs is going to increase dramatically. The Minister has a strong track record of supporting NGOs and being compassionate. I think we should put our money where our mouth is and increase funding to those NGOs to which we have already given funding, to support the increase in funding they are going to need for security and the increase in the cost of doing business. We must demonstrate solidarity with them. That could be an action we could take to show that we do not accept the designation of these NGOs as terrorist organisations and that we will take appropriate action to demonstrate that.

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