Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

The best quote of the year so far was a tweet from Dr. Panti Bliss-Cabrera:

I keep thinking about only a couple months ago and all the fury and outrage and furious tweeting and angry articles provoked by *any* suggestion that Israel had bombed a single hospital - and then Israel went ahead and openly bombed *every* hospital.

She put the word "every" in inverted commas but meant virtually every hospital. The press reported this morning that Israel has ordered people to leave a swathe of downtown Khan Younis, including three hospitals. One of the hospitals, the Nasser hospital, is one of only two facilities in southern Gaza that can still treat critically ill patients. Doctors Without Borders states that its staff are trapped inside that hospital, along with 850 patients and thousands of displaced people. This is a key part of the genocide: to destroy health infrastructure and kill masses of people while doing it. It is another reason the Government should join the South African case. Given all its hesitations in that regard, it is a reason people should march this Saturday and keep the pressure on the Government to join that case.

I will comment briefly on the points raised by the Ceann Comhairle when he alleged that the left were promoting and playing a role in the rise of antisemitism in Ireland. That is very rich from someone in a party whose history includes a Taoiseach who at one stage signed a book of condolences following the death of Adolf Hitler. Our Constitution was written in part by an antisemite, namely, Archbishop McQuaid, and is in place to this day. We stand for the replacement of that Constitution with a socialist constitution that would separate church and state. The Government still abides by the Constitution and states it is the best constitution this country could have. I will make it very clear that the left is completely opposed to antisemitism. We stand with organisations, such as Jewish Voice for Peace, which oppose the Israeli Government on what it is doing. Criticising that government is not antisemitism, which is something we are completely opposed to.

See this speech in context