Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)

I am glad to get the opportunity to say a few words about the mayhem that is taking place, in our time, in another country. I know that Ireland can do very little but we need to stand up and be counted. What is happening is barbaric. We see children, old people and women being starved. People are being starved in this day and age. In case someone does not know about it, I know what hunger is from my grandfather and grandmother telling me of when people were hungry here, what they went through and what they had to go through when they did not have anything to eat. They were poorer times. Gladly, that is not the case here in Ireland today. There is no one hungry like that, or there need not and should not be. It is terrible to starve people. They may not even have water. To think that this is happening.

I was glad to hear the Taoiseach talking today in the manner that he did. It was important. We have to play some part, through sanctions or whatever, and drive it home to Europe that it has to be more human. We are talking about a bit of humanity. What Hamas did was very wrong and it should release the rest of the hostages, because surely it is not blind to what is happening or what it is causing to happen. It should stop it and enact a ceasefire right away because it is terrible. I have youngsters who play football and so on and they ask why we cannot do something for these people. I know we can do very little but we need to stand up and say what we feel, because it is terrible. It is in our time. We are Members of the Irish Parliament and we must talk about it. We may offend others by doing this but so be it. It has gone way too far.

To think that children are going to starve, my God almighty, what is the world coming to at all? They cannot be let get away with this. I see that ordinary Israeli people are rising up against Netanyahu. He is not a man. There is no humanity at all in him to do what he is doing to innocent children who do not know what is going wrong. They are starving, thirsty, and their families have been broken up, with no contact with each other. You could not imagine that this is happening in our age, in the time we are living in. We had the atrocities of the Second World War, Auschwitz and all the terrible things that happened. We see films being made about it but this is reality. This is what is happening in front of our eyes. We can see it on the news every morning, noon and night. It is getting worse and worse. To think that Europe is making so little of it is disappointing. We are part of Europe.

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