Marie Sherlock (Dublin Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will start by saying it is a great honour to be able to stand in the Dáil for the first time as a TD for Dublin Central and be able to contribute to this very important debate today. Before I speak directly to the motion, a Cheann Comhairle, I want to say that I know we are two months on from the election and it is very much in the rear-view mirror for many of us now. Many of us, though, are elected because of the nature of our proportional representation with a single transferable vote, PR-STV, electoral system. It reflects the political will of the broadest number of voters. At a time when democracy is fragile in so many countries and where the veracity of electoral outcomes is being questioned and undermined in so many places, it is worth acknowledging the importance of our electoral system and the results that it produces for our country.

I thank Sinn Féin for putting forward this motion this evening. For any of us, when we talk to people within our communities, it is hard to understate the depth of feeling and frustration that is felt by so many people about the failure by this Government and by the EU as a peace project to face down the genocide that is being perpetrated upon the people of Palestine at this point in time. Over the past 16 months, so many words of condemnation have been uttered in this Chamber, the Seanad and, indeed, chambers right across this world about the genocidal acts that are taking place by the Israeli Government against the people of Gaza and the Palestinian territories. However, those words did not save the lives of over 64,000 people who were killed. They did not save the lives of aid workers, journalists or medical workers who have been killed by targeted Israeli strikes. They did nothing for the 2 million people displaced into temporary camps, starving and forced to live in squalor. In five, ten or 20 years' time, when people ask us what we did, when our kids ask us what we did to end the slaughter, I fear all we will have are those words. We all know it is deeds, not words, that matter.

The reality is that the trade with the illegal settlements amounts to only €0.5 million to €1 million per year. It is a tiny fraction of the overall value of Irish-Israeli trade. Banning the trade of both goods and services from the illegal settlements is the very least we should be doing. Tonight, we should instead be talking about how to dismantle the EU-Israeli trade agreement and yet we are stuck in this place because the Government is afraid to make a brave decision. This Government has a decision to make. Does it want to be remembered as the Government that finally stood up to the plate, or as one that cowered because there is a bully in the White House or because there is a hostile environment towards those who are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause within the European Union? A bully in the White House who just last night issued an effective licence for the Israeli Government and its acolytes to go in and finish the job of ethnically cleansing the Gaza Strip; a job that they started 16 months ago.

I listened to the Taoiseach today talk about protecting jobs and protecting workers. We all want to protect jobs and workers, but at what cost? If he is truly saying that business in Ireland trumps everything else and is above people's human rights and their lives, then we have no moral ground to stand on. Indeed, it is the movement of workers, the trade union movement in this country, that has been to the fore in campaigning for the rights of the Palestinian people over many decades and has been supportive of Senator Black and all those campaigning for the enactments of the occupied territories Bill.

To put it in context when we talk about the prioritisation of jobs at all cost, in this country a food business is shut down if there is a food safety issue involving people's actual lives and that, of course, means the taking of jobs. A construction company would be taken to court and the directors barred if they were found to be engaged in serious breaches of health and safety legislation. That would be more jobs gone. However, when it comes to big business - when it comes to American business - we are told that we have to proceed with caution. It is simply unacceptable. For as long as our State hides behind words and plays up rhetoric about the hypothetical damage to trade, business and jobs, we have no moral ground to stand on.

Not only is this an issue for the Government in procrastinating on the occupied territories Bill, but there are also major questions here for the Central Bank of Ireland. Last year on 4 December, the Central Bank defended its licensing of the sale of Israeli bonds in this country - bonds that are actively sold and marketed as being designed to pay for the war in Gaza. The Central Bank of Ireland stated that it is not bound by the July ruling, the advisory opinion, of the International Court of Justice last year. I listened to the Tánaiste talk about the importance of that ruling.

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