Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am in two minds as I contribute to this debate. On the one hand, as my colleague said, we are here to celebrate what Europe is supposed to stand for. This year is the 75th anniversary of the Schuman declaration, which laid the foundation for European integration. From the early days of the European Coal and Steel Community, there were efforts to integrate everything to the point where it went beyond the mere pooling of coal and steel production under a single authority to a situation whereby the resources that were used in war could no longer be used separately and could not be used by member states against one another. The evolution continued with the development of what is now the European Union.

It is true that we have not had war among the members of the European Union, but have we stopped fighting and violence in the immediate arena? No, we failed miserably as a Union in the context of the massacres that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina not too long ago. We only partially succeeded - indeed, it could be argued we failed - in bringing our collective support to bear in strengthening our Ukrainian brothers and sisters who are fighting an existential battle against Russian aggression. Ursula von der Leyen has been consistent in calling for more European co-operation. Every European country has its own designs, plans and interests. The military powers have their specific interests and the non-aligned countries with which we share a vision have their own interests.

As has been noted, the single biggest European failure has been to secure the development of peace in the Middle East. We can leave Britain in or out of the equation now in the context of Brexit. We can go back as far as the Balfour declaration or as far back as we want. The reality is that Europe is a key player in trying to foster peace and security. It has two members on the UN Security Council, albeit that body is a toothless tiger at the moment because of the intransigence of the Russians and Chinese and the unreliability of the US. Europe has failed miserably to prevent the atrocities in Gaza. We can call what has happened a multiple genocide. It was a genocide before Israel started the humanitarian aid starvation, which had been going on for 60 days last week and is at nearly 70 days now. It is absolutely horrific. We have never seen the likes of it. Here we are, as a European Union, twiddling our thumbs. There can be some element of understanding of the historic German shame about how that country exterminated 6 million Jews during the Second World War. However, the European Union is made up a lot more countries and they should really know better than allowing the types of conditions that have enabled and emboldened the Israelis, with the help of the US Administration, to commit these ongoing atrocities.

The Irish Government has talked the good talk. When I spoke about this in the House last week, the Tánaiste again condemned what Israel is doing and said the Government will raise it at a higher level with our EU partners, etc. Maybe we need to shout from the rooftops and give them a good kick up the arse, to be quite honest, in whatever way we can. When we have the EU Presidency, will it still be the case that the genocide is continuing and Israel is trying to exodus all the citizens of Gaza and build a new expanded Israel? Will Ireland, as holders of the EU Presidency, be saying we must take action?

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