Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I begin with the words of the German playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht:

The first time it was reported that our friends were being butchered there was a cry of horror. Then a hundred were butchered. But when a thousand were butchered and there was no end to the butchery, a blanket of silence spread. When evil-doing comes like falling rain, nobody calls out "stop!" When crimes begin to pile up they become invisible. When sufferings become unendurable the cries are no longer heard. The cries, too, fall like rain in summer.

It is an absolute travesty that not only is the Tánaiste not here for the debate on this motion but there is no Minister of State from the Department of Foreign Affairs present. The Minister who is in attendance merely presented the case on behalf of the Government and left the Chamber before we have a chance to respond. This is a debate on joining the case to the International Court of Justice. It is of the utmost importance and we will not accept the Government belittling it. We will continue to raise the issue time and again.

In the three months that have passed since the hideous escalation of the conflict in Gaza, I certainly am not alone in growing tired of the Government's self-congratulatory tone in the words it expresses while not following up with any action at all.

There was of course a time when the Government stood out in western and international diplomacy by simply calling for a ceasefire. That was meritorious at the time, but surely now the time for action has grown more pronounced. Yet, we still do nothing. A stand-out intervention occurred when, once again, the Tánaiste and Taoiseach were not present and the Minister, Deputy Harris, was in their place, and he iterated what is in our motion by saying that Israel is a state "blinded by rage" which was waging "a war on children". He went further and said, "You cannot build peace on the ... graves of children." Still, we are talking about a two-state solution and of course we aspire to that, but that will not happen when one state seems intent on obliterating the other. The Minister said that back in November, and still the Government seems frustrated that we are no longer just taking those words but are calling for action.

From the Social Democrats and equally across the Opposition, there have been a multitude of suggestions as to how the Government might advocate or enact economic or diplomatic sanctions against Israel to halt its slaughter of the Palestinian people in Gaza, but the Government has managed to evade responsibility and equivocate on each one. Even by that low standard, the collective Government response to the calls for Ireland to align with South Africa’s case in the ICJ has been nothing short of pathetic. The Government has been all over the place on the issue and it has been dragged to the position it is in now by public pressure, the motions that have been tabled and the calls that were made last week.

On 7 January, the Taoiseach gave a very different response when it was put to him on RTÉ radio whether the Government would seek to join the ICJ case. He said very explicitly that it was not the intention of the Government to do so. Had the Tánaiste been here, I would have asked him to detail what caused the change in tone and rhetoric. I had questions about that interview for the Tánaiste in his role of Minister for Foreign Affairs, most specifically relating to the Taoiseach’s same statements in which he invoked the Holocaust, the greatest example of man’s cruelty, which was perpetrated against the Jewish people throughout Europe, as a justification for us not meeting our own obligations under the UN Convention on the Prevention of the Crime of Genocide, which itself was born out of the horrors of that atrocity, as well as the subsequent global conviction that "never again" should mean precisely that, a cry that has been echoed by incredible Jewish voices for peace, such as the Jewish Voice for Peace, B'Tselem and other courageous voices from the Jewish community. Equally, the Taoiseach in that same interview referred to what he described as other genocides and went on to refer to the Armenian genocide. That was incredible in the sense that it was the first time a senior Minister, the Taoiseach no less, referred to and acknowledged the Armenian genocide.

As I stand here, I am conscious that I have used the word “genocide” already on a number of occasions. I promise that I feel the weight coursing through my veins each time I utter that word, as I am sure did the Tánaiste when, in his capacity as Taoiseach at the time, he tweeted on 8 April 2022:

We utterly condemn the slaughter of innocent civilians at Kramatorsk train station today. The horrific attack is further evidence of the barbaric nature of Russia’s war on Ukraine. [He continued] This is genocide. And those responsible must be held to account.

The then Taoiseach said that eight weeks into Russia’s horrific invasion of Ukraine. Given that he said that about the attack on Kramatorsk train station, which is seared into our collective memory and in which 63 civilians were killed, including nine children, and 150 more were wounded, does he not equally feel the hypocrisy when he fails to apply the same urgency in expression to Gaza? Just this week, both Oxfam and Trócaire outlined that Israel is killing more than 250 people per day. As we all know, Israel does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. To emphasise that point further, I reference the Save The Children report which shows that, since 7 October, ten children per day have lost one or both legs through bombing by Israel.

Yesterday, the Government tabled a motion contained within which were the words that the Government will “strongly consider an intervention in the South AfricavIsrael case at the ICJ". What exactly does the Government mean by "strongly consider an intervention"? The Government will know that Ireland ratified the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in 1976. Stated explicitly in Article 1 of this convention is the obligation on states to prevent genocide. It appears to be a tactical point on the Tánaiste’s part to conflate the responsibilities of the court with those of ourselves as a State actor, so allow me to reiterate that requirement. Under Article 1 of the convention, our responsibility as a state is to prevent genocide. It is not our role to define genocide, nor is it our role to prosecute it after the fact. It is our role to prevent it. We as a signatory have an obligation to assess the risks where there appears an obvious threat of genocide occurring. We are obliged to express those fears both to the courts, but prior to doing so, we are tasked with operating a dispute mechanism with Israel. I wanted to ask the Tánaiste if he has yet to do that. We keep talking about the necessity of keeping diplomatic channels open. Should the Irish Government find the courage to take a case to the ICJ, will we be able to point to documented references where the Irish Government has conveyed our dismay, displeasure, horror, whatever you want to call it, at any number of the atrocities Israel is committing in Gaza at the moment?

The Government has told us and the media on a number of occasions this week that the Irish State cannot legally intervene in the South Africa case at the moment, as if that was new information to anyone, but it is not. That reality is explicitly provided for in our motion when we said that we should intervene “as a matter of urgency and at the earliest possible opportunity”. That is in our motion, and that is what the Government proposes to take out in its amendment. We were careful in choosing these words because of the reality of the court, but equally, we said "urgently" in the expectation that the Government would endeavour on a tepid approach that is probably best encapsulated in the use of the phrase “strongly consider” in the Government's amendment.

However, the Government are not hamstrung to act in the period before the ICJ makes its preliminary findings. The State could add validity to the South African case by making a public statement of support of the case, and I note People Before Profit-Solidarity has added a helpful amendment to our motion to that effect, which we will be supporting and we hope the Government does too. It is a strong example of parties working collaboratively across the Chamber and working together in terms of amendments to motions and not trying to centre themselves on the issue, as others have done. I note, too, that Deputy Carthy has tabled amendments to the Government’s amendment, which we will likely also support.

The Tánaiste must also be aware that while not yet intervening formally, other states such as the US, the UK and Germany have already announced their intention to align themselves with Israel and are undertaking the task of building their legal case at this moment. Equally, we can begin that process on the side of South Africa if only we have the courage, and it will require courage, to go beyond ourselves and stand for something more than the illusion of statesmanship and seeming content that we have done just a little bit more to stand slightly above the former colonisers and states who very recently in history were complicit in their own forms of genocide. They are acting in accordance with their own histories and we should remember ours as we seek to endeavour to support the South African case but also supporting the people in Gaza who are undergoing incredible horrors that we believe are tantamount to the crimes of genocide.

We do not have to wait for the ICJ to make a preliminary finding before the Government undertakes a rigorous legal assessment of the facts. We should begin that process right now. Have members of the Government not already read the opinion of former President Mary Robinson in her statement on behalf of the Elders, or the statements by Professor Siobhán Mullally and Mary Lawlor who were part of the UN independent experts statement on 16 November? These were subsequently used in South Africa’s submission to the ICJ where another Irish human rights lawyer, Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh, was exemplary in her contribution on behalf of the South African case. These are examples of Irish human rights lawyers standing up and giving their legal opinions on what we are seeing with our eyes. We do not need to wait for a rigorous legal assessment. More to the point, why does that burden have to fall on South Africa? In addition to making observations or aligning with them, we can initiate our own proceedings to the ICJ that could complement the South African case. There are a multitude of different ways in which we could do it.

This Government had a foreign policy achievement in 2022, namely, the restriction on large-scale munitions in an urban environment. We got 82 other states to sign up to that. It was a foreign policy achievement, but the Government may as well rip it up, because 2,000 lb bombs are being blasted every single day on the most densely populated place in the world. It is half the size of Louth and we are doing nothing. The Government might as well rip up that achievement.

There is a situation that is in vogue at the moment whereby the Israeli Government and others are writing their names on bombs before they drop them, whereas in Gaza, parents are writing their names on their children's arms, should they be obliterated so they can be identified, and we sit back and do nothing. It is pathetic. We should align ourselves with South Africa but we should have the courage to go beyond that and enact our own proceedings.

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