Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The renewed slaughter in Gaza has now claimed hundreds more lives since Benjamin Netanyahu broke the ceasefire on 18 March. In that time we have seen the overall death toll from Israeli attacks break 50,000, the UN Human Rights Council reporting on the destruction of maternal and reproductive healthcare facilities and now another war crime with the massacre of Red Crescent medical workers. The lies that were told by the Israel Defense Forces about the circumstances of their deaths have now been revealed.

The renewed killing by the Israeli Government has entirely undercut its justification of the war in seeking to free hostages, a point made clear by the tens of thousands of Israeli citizens demonstrating against the broken ceasefire. In the recent past Ireland had taken a leadership role within the EU. We led in the call for the review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. We participated in the ICJ case on the occupation that was decided last July. In May of last year we finally recognised the State of Palestine. However, that active role has changed since the US presidential election and particularly since the general election here.

I put it to the Minister that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have made a conscious choice that Ireland will take no more political leadership on Gaza in the lifetime of this Government. I put it to her that the Government will never pass an occupied territories Bill - not the comprehensive version that has already cleared the Seanad, and not the weak watered-down version proposed in the programme for Government. In the face of war crimes, ethnic cleansing and genocide, we should be redoubling our efforts, but the Government is stepping back. It is time for honesty now. We know what is happening in Gaza is a monumental crime. Does our country still stand for a world in which powerful states cannot trample over human rights and extinguish thousands of lives or do we allow this new fear created by global strongmen to overpower the deep-seated humanitarian instincts of the Irish people?

If I am wrong in my belief that this Government will take no more political steps to support Palestine, I ask the Minister to tell me how she can prove to me that I am wrong. Once committees are established, I ask her to commit here today to a Committee Stage debate on the current occupied territories Bill and let the Opposition bring forward amendments to deal with issues that have been raised. If she is not prepared to do that, can she at least tell us when the Minister for foreign affairs will bring forward the Government's watered-down version of the occupied territories Bill for debate in this House so we can at least assess what benefit, if any, it can bring to pressurising Israel to stop its slaughter?

See this speech in context