Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank People Before Profit for tabling this motion, which affords us all an opportunity to speak again on what we are witnessing.

Edmund Burke was a Dubliner. He spent time in Westminster as an MP and he is reported to have said that the only way evil can prosper is for good men to do nothing. It is evil we are witnessing day after day and not only are good men and women not doing anything, but they are cheerleading it. It is with absolute depression that I witness what is happening to supposed respectable, progressive, western democracies in the face of this evil we are witnessing, including the deaths of thousands and thousands of children, what appears to be the destruction of an entire people and bloodthirsty rhetoric, which is completely unsurprising to anyone who has observed this conflict over a period of years.

The attitude of the US, the UK and the EU is such that the level respect we would have had for them in this House heretofore has been tarnished and possibly broken. If Ursula von der Leyen decided to come to this House next week, as she has in the past, I do not think many of us would feel that we could consider sitting in the same room as that person after what she has done, effectively cheerleading this evil. If Joe Biden were to come next week as President of America, as he has done in the past, we would have an awful lot of empty seats as a result of the backing the US has given to Israel over prolonged periods and in this conflict. It is with absolute disgust that I note that the only member of Congress to have been censured over remarks on this conflict is a Palestinian-American citizen. The attitude of politics in the UK, including of our sister party, the British Labour Party, is of huge disappointment to me and to other members of the Irish Labour Party because we have to call out evil for what it is.

I reject the suggestion that, before you make a comment about what Israel is doing, you have to automatically answer a question about Hamas. I do not remember in my childhood that before those who felt strongly about British state terrorism in Ireland got the words out of their mouths, they had to say they had a problem with the IRA. Of course, we have difficulty with it and we absolutely condemn evil. We absolutely condemn the actions of Hamas on 7 October - that goes without saying - but this is state sponsored evil on a catastrophic scale and it is being cheer-led by supposed liberal, progressive, enlightened, western democracies.

In fairness to the Minister of State and the Government, while many people can be critical of them, Ministers in this Government have stood apart from the European mainstream and said things that would probably have gotten them thrown out of every parliament in Europe and a number of political parties across Europe. Some of the statements have been quite strong. The Taoiseach called it revenge. A Minister said it is a war on children. A Minister said peace cannot be built on the graves of children. These are extremely strong statements and we should recognise that in the context of what other EU leaders are not saying.

The Minister of State and I are both children of the 1980s and we grew up at a time when there was an ethical understanding of what was happening in South Africa and we knew we had to do things differently. We were different and if the South African rugby team came to Dublin we were not going to be quiet and let it just happen. When the Dunnes Stores workers took a stand - women took a stand - against South African produce being stocked in Dunnes Stores, they were supported by the ordinary people of Dublin. If we are waiting for a collective response from the EU, it will never happen. It will never ever happen. The attitude of Germany and Austria, due to their history with the Holocaust, is understandable on one level, but they cannot, in reflecting on their national trauma over the Holocaust, facilitate the evil we are witnessing day by day. We have to stand aside from the European mainstream if that is what it takes and apply sanctions on Israel, as we did on South Africa in the past because Israel will continue to do this until there is a consequence. There is no consequence. Israel can kill as many Palestinian children as it likes. It can shoot as many stone throwers in the West Bank as it pleases and it will be cheer-led and offered more weapons by those who preach democracy.

All of us in this Chamber underestimate how important Ireland is. Our neutrality is important. Our history is important. What we have suffered on this island is important. The conflict we witnessed as children is important. The fact that we understand the nature of war, violence, sectarianism and what they do is important. The wounds are still unhealed so we understand the damage that is being done, not only in terms of lives but in terms of intergenerational trauma and we understand the thirst for justice the Palestinian people have.

We can no longer stand idly by and say we will just wait for everybody else in the EU to come to the same conclusion we have and then we can collectively act. It is just never ever going to happen. Until we have a moment where we have exactly the same attitude to Israel as we had in the 1980s to South Africa, which led to huge change, we will be back here next year, the year after, in five years and in ten years. Does anybody really feel that if we do not do that, we will not have these debates again and again? What will the body count of Palestinian children be then? There is no other way. The only response is South Africa-style sanctions, as we did in the 1980s. It will be necessary and I want the Government to lead on it.

See this speech in context