Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I also take the opportunity to wish Deputies Howlin and Catherine Murphy the very best. I have no hesitation in saying that, without a doubt, parliamentary democracy will be poorer for their absence. I wanted to say that.

I thank the Social Democrats for bringing this motion and using their time. I read the Tánaiste's speech with despair. It was carefully crafted, completely avoided the issue and did not reflect the outrage on the ground. I can tell the Government that it is completely out of touch with the despair, despondency and anger felt by people on the ground. In addition to housing and health, Gaza is the topic that will dominate when we go to the doors, and rightly so. They are angry with all of us, notwithstanding our best efforts to do something about this.

We come here today against a background of figures being thrown out, including up to 150,000 people injured. Within that, somewhere between 43,000 and 50,000 are dead. We do not know the figures because journalists are not allowed in there. We have no way of monitoring this. UNRWA was the only agency there. It should not have been there at all from day one but that was the way it was set up. Questions have to be asked about why we needed UNRWA in the first place, but Gaza and Palestine could not have survived without it. Now, the government of Israel, in its wisdom, is going to do away with that as well.

I read the Tánaiste's speech and I say, "Good lord. What have we come to?", when we produce a speech like that in the face of all of those deaths and injuries I mentioned. These include 1,000 healthcare workers and 183 journalists killed. I am sure it is higher than that. I do not want to single out anyone, but we have watched this genocide being committed under our watch, while we look at it, and in our name. More than 42 million tonnes of rubble and a large concentration of explosive hazards, in addition to everything else, pose an imminent threat to civilians, while the entry of specialised personnel and equipment and the conduct of explosive ordnance disposal activities are restricted. The bombardment by Israel from air, land and sea across the Gaza Strip continues to be reported and we get a Tánaiste who came here today to tell us nothing really, except we must be very careful. He is well able to tell us that we utterly and unreservedly condemn these brutal attacks - this was the attack on 7 October, which we are all on record as condemning - but he does not go on to condemn Israel. He used words such as, "[It is] beyond any moral compass", which I welcome, but following from that, if the action of the government in Israel and its army is "beyond any moral compass", then a different speech should be written, if those words are to mean anything. The first thing we should say is that we unreservedly condemn the continuous action of the Israeli army and its government in relation to the people of Gaza, and we unreservedly condemn genocide. These are the words that follow if the action is "beyond any moral compass".

We should then address what is happening at Shannon. The Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, finally told us, and the Minister of State might clarify this because the Tánaiste did not, that the memo that was to be brought to Government this week was to allow for increased powers to search, sanction and sample. That is clearly a recognition that arms are going through Shannon Airport. For the first time, we are now admitting that they are going through Shannon, In the past three and a half years alone, 222,000 US soldiers have gone through. Are they going to a party somewhere? Are they going somewhere without arms? Surely, the Government should question what the purpose of the soldiers coming through is.

I hope the Minister of State is uncomfortable with my words because I am most uncomfortable, as are all my colleagues here, as to what is happening in our name. Our words are just empty rhetoric really. We are in a sense of despondency that this is happening. We are attending vigils, and I do not like protest, and gatherings of people who are at their wits' end begging us to do something. We are receiving 10,000 to 15,000 emails. We are not in a position to deal with other emails because of the sense of outrage being outlined to us.

The occupied territories Bill did not come out yesterday. For years, Sadaka and all the organisations on the ground have begged us. Fair play to Senator Black and her colleagues who pushed this. The recognition of Palestine was included in the programme for Government in 2020. That did not happen overnight. That happened after years and years of campaigning and because Gaza has been under siege. History did not start on 7 October. It certainly did not. It is incumbent on us to read the history books and read everything possible. We know that there has been a 100 years' war on Palestine, deliberately created first by England, followed by America and then with the EU colluding. Let us remember that lovely woman who is in charge of the Commission who told us she stood shoulder to shoulder with Netanyahu because he made the desert bloom. This is the type of language we are colluding with. I will not collude with it; neither will the parties on this side of the House collude with it, not for the sake of objection or opposition for opposition's sake, but because this is morally wrong. It is criminal. Israel has got away with this and we have let it act with impunity. It has designated human rights organisations as terrorist. It has ignored the Amnesty report, as has the Government, which clearly laid out, after years of research, that Israel is operating an apartheid regime.

The International Court of Justice, the highest court in the world, has told us that the occupation of the West Bank and other occupations are illegal, yet we still trade with Israel and still wait for the morally corrupt leadership of the EU to lead us. It is time we led as an independent republic and independent sovereign state, when our history has given us the clear mandate to act because of our history.

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