Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----need to be viable and need to be secure.

With regard to Irish citizens who are in Gaza, almost all who want to leave and their dependants are now out, or at least the majority are. We are working on a few further cases. We engage with the Israeli, Egyptian and Jordanian authorities, and others, on this. I know there are people who want us to expel the Israeli ambassador. Being able to talk to the Israeli ambassador at least gave us someone to talk to when it came to getting our citizens out of Gaza. I want to acknowledge that, and the work of the Egyptians and the Jordanians in that regard.

The individual case of Rocco was raised by Deputy Murphy. I am very sorry to hear about the case, but it is not something I can comment on without knowing all the details. Certainly, if the Deputy wants to pass those on with permission from his family to make representations on his behalf, I would be happy to do that.

On the Israel-EU Association Agreement and the human rights clause, the EU-Israel Association Council is an important forum for raising all matters of mutual interest. This includes areas where the EU and Israel disagree. At the association council in October of last year, the EU clearly restated its position that all agreements between the State of Israel and the EU must unequivocally and explicitly indicate their inapplicability to the territories occupied by Israel in 1967. We have been consistently vocal in ensuring the application of this policy across all sectors of co-operation. The association council provides a platform for the EU to deliver, where necessary, clear collective messages on issues of concern, including with regard to human rights and international law. As Deputies will be aware, trade is an EU competence and we cannot take unilateral actions on trade or trade sanctions. As I have said previously, sanctions only work when they are done on a multilateral basis. The whole point of sanctions is that they should do more harm to the country being sanctioned than the one imposing the sanctions.

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