Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Speaking down the clock and talking about how I am apparently being disingenuous really says it all. I literally said at the beginning that the Government voted down our motion, which called on it to intervene "at the earliest possible opportunity". I literally highlighted, in my speech just before the Tánaiste spoke, that we want the work to start now. We do not signal our intent and walk into the ICJ tomorrow. There is preparatory work that needs to take place. We are calling on the Government to do that now - to intervene "at the earliest possible opportunity". The Government amended our motion to say that it might intervene at some undescriptive time in the future. I was not disingenuous. Word for word, that is what our motion said. The Government amended it.

When I ask the Tánaiste about the Government's actions, the only thing he can point to is securing travel bans for violent settlers. I want to give people an idea of how relatively inconsequential that is. Given that America, which is one of Israel's biggest allies, introduced those bans at the start of December, it is hardly a legitimate action in the grand scheme of this entire situation. It is clear the Tánaiste will not answer the questions I asked. I will go back to one thing, and I ask him to respond to this. He said, without hesitation and without equivocation, that there was a genocide happening in Ukraine. Will he use that same language to describe what is happening in Gaza?

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