Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity, and I will use my three minutes to the best of my ability, to focus on what is happening in the world. The speeches from the Minister, Peter Burke, and the Tánaiste were examples of how to mislead and be disingenuous. We had 3,000 words from Simon Harris. There was one mention of Israel in those 3,000 words, when he said: "The Israeli strikes on Gaza this week must be utterly condemned". Otherwise, there was no mention of Israel. Gaza is mentioned as one word, along with Syria, Lebanon and the Middle East. In contrast, there are two pages on the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, which is rightly condemned, but there is absolutely no recognition that international law and peace is greatly threatened by Netanyahu's behaviour, and by the Israeli Government and army, along with Trump. Peter Burke very helpfully gave us 2,250 words but nothing was mentioned in that speech about the genocide in Gaza.

I stand here and wonder how that could happen, or what is happening. I would dearly love to talk about trade. I know the figures on trade, the deficits in that regard and what goes in and out of the country, but trade pales into insignificance compared to the threat posed by Israel. We continue to trade with Israel. We watch genocide taking place on the ground and we stand by and do nothing.

I repeat this despite the Tánaiste's demeaning comments about me shouldering the burden. I certainly do not, but the people on the ground in Gaza who are still alive, the ones left, are shouldering the burden along with those who dare to speak for them. It is becoming increasingly difficult to speak out because it has been equated and conflated with anti-Semitism, which is utterly wrong.

Let us look at what we are talking about today, Dáil statements on international security. That is the first half. We heard nothing about what is happening, no condemnation of Israel and no analysis of how this happened and that it did not start on 7 October 2023. There is a whole history. I can say that as someone who has absolutely condemned the invasions by Hamas and by Russia. If we are going to be believed and if we are going to act as an independent sovereign State, a neutral republic, we must use our voice to speak to power and the abuse of power by President Trump, Netanyahu and Russia. However, to have any credibility in the world we must be consistent. We must take courage in our hand, use our voice for peace and form alliances with other countries that will not go along with this consensus.

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