Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)

Through the Central Bank, this State is complicit in Israel's genocide and apartheid. Its role in the funding of the most unspeakable crimes must end immediately. This Bill is legally sound and independently drafted. What does breach international law is Israel's brutal occupation of Palestine. It is burning children alive, starving entire communities and killing civilians with impunity. Despite multiple UN reports affirming that Israel is committing genocidal acts, the issuing of arrest warrants for senior Israeli Government officials, a separate ICJ ruling that Israel's occupation of Palestine is entirely illegal and the deaths of tens of thousands of people, including children in Gaza, the Central Bank of Ireland continues to act as Israel's sales agency in the EU.

The world has watched the genocide unfold every day. Bombs are being dropped on homes, hospitals, schools, shelters and aid centres. Aid workers with international agencies are targeted and murdered. We were horrified when babies in Al-Nasr hospital were left to die and decompose after hospital staff were forced out at gunpoint. This is unthinkable. The Irish public stand overwhelmingly with the Palestinian people. They march, protest and promote the BDS campaign in huge numbers. They are disgusted by this complicity with the Israeli regime. The Government and the previous one are and have been strong in rhetoric, but we need action. We must do everything in our power to save the people of Gaza from genocide. We must take a stand for international law, and we must uphold basic humanity and decency. In the words of ambassador Majed Bamya:

The whole world chants for Gaza, weeps for Gaza, aches for Gaza, is outraged by what is happening in Gaza. But the people in Gaza, the children of Gaza, have no use for our chants, our tears and our outrage if they are not accompanied by actions that could actually stop the killing, feed the hungry, heal the wounded, save those who can still be saved.

When future generations ask, "What did you do when the people of Gaza were massacred?", what will you tell them? Will you say that on this day you refused to help them, or that you finally acted?

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