Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I raise with the Taoiseach the remarks made by the US President - or I should say the threat made by the US President - in respect of the Gaza Strip, in which he openly countenanced the mass expulsion of the Palestinian population and the annexation and seizure of those lands and their development, he seemed to suggest, into some form of Riviera. I would like the Taoiseach to agree with me that any such threat runs directly against the protections of international law and humanitarian law for a refugee population.

I would like him to agree with me that the Palestinian people have suffered enough. Their dispossession is now decades - generations - long. Generations have grown up and have known nothing other than refugee camps. Will he also agree with me that the answer in the Middle East is dialogue, engagement, respect for international law and that we cannot countenance or tolerate any player, the United States or any other, going it alone and flying in the face of that? Will the Taoiseach also join with me in calling on the United States to cease and desist from arming the Israeli onslaught on the Palestinian people? Our European colleagues and our British friends might also follow suit. Finally, on the occupied territories Bill, I put on record our collective disappointment that the Taoiseach has stepped away from what was a very clear-cut commitment to put that law on the Statute Book. I urge him to change direction, to recommit to that and I give him the assurance that Sinn Féin and, I believe the entire Opposition, will work with him co-operatively in that regard.

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