Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to support this Bill brought forward by Sinn Féin. I thank Deputy Brady for doing the work and bringing it forward. This Bill aims to prevent the National Treasury Management Agency from investing in businesses that operate in illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land. I support this aim. We know our own story. We were an oppressed nation for 700 or 800 years and these people are clearly also being oppressed. Sadly, children are being killed every day. Even though I do respect our neutrality, I refer to a situation where we do not have an army and we cannot even find out what the Russian boats are doing off the coast of Castletownbere or Dingle.

Today, 75 years after the UN voted to divide Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, Palestinians are still waiting for one. While Israelis celebrate 14 May 1948 as their Independence Day, Palestinians bemoan it as a catastrophe, when some 700,000 of them were forced from their homes or just fled. Israel now practically rules over 7 million Palestinians, including those in Israel, and in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which are internationally regarded as the basis of an independent Palestinian state. The UN voted to divide the country but at the same time, that organisation is abdicating its role to ensure that fairness is applied on both sides.

I reiterate that I respect our neutrality and we certainly thank Eamon de Valera for taking that stance back during the Second World War when England was trying to drag us into it, especially after what it had done to our forefathers over hundreds of years. He did the right thing. Many ordinary, down-to-earth people appreciate our neutrality and they understand it. We are not even paying the personnel in our Army properly. It is not so long ago since they had to get family income supplement to supplement their incomes. We do not, therefore, have an army as such, but I do support this motion. We should not be causing pain to or hurting Palestinians any further by taking the side of the Israelis.

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