Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

People Before Profit put a motion to the Dáil in November of last year asking the Government to take a case against Israel for genocide under the ICJ and it voted against it. Now, belatedly, because South Africa did what Ireland should have done, the Government is saying there will be some class of intervention. I suppose later is better than not at all, but when we consider the horror that has ensued for the people of Gaza and continues, the Government should be ashamed, frankly, of its failure to support that call in November of last year.

Setting that aside, the convention requires not just punishment after the fact and Article 1 says “prevent”. What the students in Trinity College have done is to seek to prevent by imposing economic damage on a state capable of committing genocide. Are we going to follow the lead of the Trinity students and impose sanctions now that will hurt the state committing genocide? We can do it. We should audit everything in the Houses of the Oireachtas, we should look at every single support given to Israeli companies and, of course, we should expel the Israeli ambassador. We should do things that will impact on a state that is committing genocide.

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