Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As the Minister of State knows, long before the recent disastrous events in Palestine and Israel, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and B'Tselem designated Israel as an apartheid state. On 18 July 1984 Mary Manning, a shop worker at Dunnes Stores on Henry Street, here in Dublin, refused to handle South African goods in protest against its apartheid regime. Three years later Ireland became the first state in the western world to ban imports of South African goods. That is the stand we took back then. We led the way and the rest of the world continued on that path, and eventually that apartheid regime was brought down and justice was delivered for all the South African people.

Despite the fact that the occupied territories Bill was passed by both Houses, it was not implemented. Despite the fact that my colleague, Deputy Brady, brought forward the Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill, it was not accepted or implemented. At some point we have to go back to the approach we took during the South African challenge from people who upheld humanity and decency across the world, starting with that woman, Mary Manning, and all her colleagues who joined her.

The appeal, therefore, is to go back to the practices we had in the past that were the right ones to make a stand for what is right and decent. All the Deputies here, led by our spokesperson, Deputy Carthy, have outlined and will outline the disastrous genocide taking place. We have to refer Israel to the International Criminal Court. We have to take a stand in line with our tradition in this country of standing up for people who are oppressed and standing up against oppressive regimes.

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