John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach called out the horrors yesterday at the Global Ireland Summit in front of as large an international representative audience as you could get, from around the world and the European Union. I wish he could do it every day but that seems to be what is being asked for on the Opposition benches. My colleague Deputy O'Meara put it very well with regard to the inability of the European Union to act cohesively on Gaza. Ireland has been very clear about it. The Taoiseach was exceptionally clear about it yesterday, as was the Tánaiste. The Danish Minister for European Affairs was here this morning meeting members of the European affairs committee, of whom I am one. One of the issues I raised with her was that Ireland is the only European country to have called out the deprivation and the denial of food aid to people in Gaza as a war crime, and she acknowledged that. That is what we need to keep doing as parliamentarians - to continue raising it at every particular opportunity that arises.

Today, I think to some degree of the context that brought about the European Union, which was the desire of European countries to destroy each other over centuries, and the annihilation, almost, of a race and religion during the Second World War. Freedoms have not really been mentioned. On the freedoms that we take for granted, a previous speaker said the European Union is worth fighting for. The first issue that the Danish Minister for European Affairs raised today was security and defence because they are terrified. It is a topic that the Minister of State has referred to previously. I recall him saying that every house in Sweden has received a brochure through its door about preparedness in the event of war. We are insulated and isolated. Thank God for that, and thank God we are surrounded by water, but there is a reality out there. The freedoms we take for granted are not under attack from the European Union; they are under attack from forces such as Russia. I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for his forbearance.

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