Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There are very few. Most people only say it behind my back anyway.

Let us be clear about the issue we are dealing with. There is an element of groundhog day. We are back talking about the situation the Palestinian people find themselves in. We know what has happened. We know the murderous acts that happened in Jenin. We know this is the means by which the Israeli government wanted to take out what we can call the third force. We know what they have done in the Gaza strip. In recent years we have seen right-wing governments that have become more right wing with the passing of time. We are talking about governments that in no way care what the rest of the world thinks about them. The only conclusion you can come to is that they have made a determination there will be no Palestinian state. There will be no Palestinian people. What they are going to do is take whatever ground they possibly can in the West Bank. They are going to absolutely strafe, impact, kill, maim and do whatever they have done to those in Gaza. I do not know what the end of the road will be. I imagine that the Zionist-imperialist point of view will involve taking those lands it wants and handing everything else over to somebody else. That is not good enough.

I accept that the Government, the Tánaiste and the Taoiseach will talk about how we have been more vociferous than many other states when it comes to supporting the Palestinian people against brutal Israeli regimes.

The fact is that we really need to put our money where our mouth is and we need to be able to deliver. That is about recognising the Palestinian state, it is the occupied territories Bill, and dealing with the fact that we have State money in the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, ISIF, going into companies involved in the occupied territories. I would like to see what the Government has done in respect of bringing like-minded states in Europe together to come up with some co-operative moves and see if that does not exist. We need to take real action. We owe this to the Palestinian people and to the world. What is happening here is just not good enough.

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