Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

Over the past 16 months, millions of people have had their eyes opened to awful things about the world we live in, about the apartheid nature of the Israeli state, about the oppression, displacement and discrimination faced by Palestinians on a daily basis, about the deep depravity of the capitalist, imperialist system we live in, where Palestinian life is, in effect, worthless, and about the complicity of much of the world's media, which whitewashed a genocide that unfolded before their and our eyes. Another thing people have had their eyes opened to is the deep cynicism and hypocrisy of politicians who promised one thing before an election only to scrap it immediately afterwards; politicians who speak lofty words about human rights and then prioritise the right of profit of corporations.

Micheál Martin and Simon Harris stood in the elections and in the leaders' debate and said they will pass the occupied territories Bill. Now, they are planning to gut it. They hide behind the language of needing to do this lawfully. It is a nonsense and they know it is a nonsense. I will tell them why it is a nonsense. They have rested their whole basis for doing this on the ICJ opinion. That is why they said last year, all of a sudden, that they could do it. In fact, the ICJ makes no distinction whatsoever between goods and services. This has nothing to do with legality. It is about power. It is about bowing down to US corporations and it is about shamefully bowing down to Donald Trump. Absolute shame on them.

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