Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin (Wicklow-Wexford, Sinn Fein)

Some years ago, I was fortunate enough to stay with the lovely people of Gaza. It is a tiny place just one third the size of County Dublin or one quarter the size of my constituency of Wicklow–Wexford. It now has 2.2 million people, mostly children, who are corralled into what is, in effect, a concentration camp. We see emaciated, corpse-like children deliberately being starved and sometimes incinerated. Irish people, of course, naturally despair and feel helpless and powerless in the face of a Cromwellian-style scorched earth campaign, which has seen a level of depravity and bloodlust not previously witnessed by any of us. It is literally a holocaust that is being livestreamed into the palms of our hands.

Israel, with super-advanced firepower, is breaking every single international law yet is rewarded, funded, armed and given cover by the wealthy and powerful of the western world, including the Irish Government. Last week, a hospital doctor was dropped to work by her husband only to receive the incinerated corpses of nine of her ten children shortly afterwards. We see babies shot through the head with precision sniper fire and soldiers boasting about it on social media. Sadly, Ireland has been complicit in this apocalypse as Ireland funds this genocide by selling war bonds. The Irish Central Bank is the bank that gives them permission to sell the bonds across the EU. It is shameful that the Irish Central Bank and the Government ever allowed this to happen. However, we can redeem ourselves. We can make amends for this blood money. A little country like ours can, in fact, make a big difference because we have the power to pull the plug on the Israeli war bonds across the whole of the EU.

If the Government's words on the genocide in Gaza are to mean anything, the Government will support this Bill. It is drafted by Oireachtas legal experts. The Government should not wriggle out of this with weasel words. I implore it to do the right thing and be on the right side of history.

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