Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend the Social Democrats on tabling this motion which I fully support. Israel's ongoing aggression against Gaza and the West Bank has so far resulted in the killing of over 11,000 Palestinians in Gaza and, up to last night, 177 Palestinians in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem. The Taoiseach had said that Israel is engaging in collective punishment against the people of Gaza, that Israel has no right to breach international humanitarian law and that Israeli attacks in Gaza resemble something more approaching revenge rather than self-defence.

However, faced with the opportunity yesterday to support a call to refer Israel to the International Criminal Court the Government spokesperson informed us that it will not back up its words and will instead sit on its hands and do nothing. As the saying goes, talk is cheap and sound bites are even cheaper. The Government spokesperson told us that referring the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories to the ICC under Article 14 would serve no legal purpose and that an active investigation is currently ongoing. However, when Ireland along with 42 other countries referred Russia to the ICC in March 2022, the ICC had already announced a month earlier that it was to seek authorisation to open an investigation on this matter. This begs a very obvious question: what legal purpose does this serve? It serves none according to the Government's stance on yesterday's Sinn Féin motion.

What it did serve was a moral purpose. Even though the ICC was already seeking authorisation to open an investigation into potential violations of international law in Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Ireland felt it right to necessitate a state referral. The double standards in the Government's reasoning for not supporting the call to refer Israel to the ICC is plain for everyone to see. Again, talk is cheap.

I will briefly speak about the recent statement from the Council of the European Union which includes the following absolutely outrageous paragraph:

The EU condemns the use of hospitals and civilians as human shields by Hamas. Civilians must be allowed to leave the combat zone... These hostilities are severely impacting hospitals and taking a terrific toll on civilians and medical staff.

It is absolutely appalling that the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Micheál Martin, gave this his approval. Palestinians have been fleeing to these facilities as they deem them safer than their own homes which are being indiscriminately bombed in IDF airstrikes. What the Minister, Deputy Micheál Martin, has done has handed Israel a propaganda tool to continue the targeting of hospitals, schools and other such facilities. I say this is not in my name, nor, I suspect, in the name of the vast majority of the Irish public.

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