Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the tenor of the Bill and the principles to which it speaks. The Irish people do not in principle support any type of State investment that is seen to underpin or to profit from the ongoing annexation of Palestine by the state of Israel. We in Ireland know at first hand what colonialism looks like and what partition does to a country and its people. We know what apartheid engenders in terms of discrimination and subjugation of a national citizenry, which is denied the basic rights of free movement in their own country, denied equal access to education and to occupation and recognition of their right to call their home, "home". I do not think anyone in Ireland would question the right of Israel to exist nor of its people to prosper but neither should we be blind to some Israeli policy which delivers such a message contrary to the Palestinian people. The segregation of communities may have some legitimate purpose in peacekeeping and securing individual lives and property but the bulldozing of Palestinian settlements and schools could not be condoned in any such way, nor could the indiscriminate use of lethal force by the Israel army when faced with protestors at its borders. Lethal force has been deployed intermittently for many years by the Israeli army. This was made all too clear in the last two years with the significant loss of life, including those of international journalists trying to report on border demonstrations, who died as a result of indiscriminate Israeli army tactical firing. This is not the way to build peace.

We must acknowledge - when I say "we", I do not just mean those of us in this House but also those of us in this country who feel that these are not the activities of a vulnerable state but the actions of an aggressive administration subjugating those within their population who they do not see as citizens but rather as sometimes enemies. It is an economic and social reality that many Palestinians may work doing menial jobs in Israel but they will never be accepted as citizens of equal standing by most who sit in Israeli political administration. Subjugation is supported by Irish political acquiescence through national Exchequer investment and decision-making. This is an abhorrent policy that would find no general support among the Irish people. They would wish, where it occurs, for it to stop immediately.

My experience of Palestine is informed not by personal visit but by personal relationship. In a previous role more than two decades ago, I gave employment to a Palestinian refugee who had managed to leave the occupied West Bank. I formed a strong relationship with this man over the subsequent 20 years and I have seen him suffer the passing of his father, mother and brother without ever setting eyes on them again other than through chat phone technology. He has made several trips to Egypt where family travelled to meet him but he was never able to cross the border into Palestine for fear that authorities would not let him exit again. He is now married with two children and lives in Waterford. To this day, to my knowledge, he has never got closer to his homeland than Egypt. This is the reality of partition and subjugation. Policies may be expressed in the name of peace but they do not engender peace. As we in Ireland celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, we can see the only charter for a resolution of this Palestinian question is one in which both sides realise the past is no place from which to build peace and that all people can only come together and live together through an engendered spirit of peace. Freedom is not possible without equality. It is now our job to try to build pressure and exert such a move to a fairer and just society for both the Israeli and Palestinian citizens.

See this speech in context