Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)

Half a million Gazans are starving. Thousands of children are dying from hunger alone because of the Israeli blockade. Yesterday, while very little aid was being distributed, Israeli troops fired at desperate Palestinian civilians. Enough food was given to feed 2% of the Gazan population for half a week. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation director overseeing the delivery resigned in protest, stating aid could not be distributed according to basic humanitarian principles. Aid is blatantly militarised and used as a weapon of war. Israel and the US alone dictate the terms of distribution, and the effects on life in Gaza as we know it are cataclysmic. I plead with the Irish Government to use every tool in the diplomatic arsenal to release the abundant UN aid and allow officials who have the expertise to deliver it to do so.

Meanwhile at home, the Government passes up every concrete opportunity to punish Netanyahu’s genocidal regime. Services are being left out of the occupied territories Bill, dramatically watering down its impact, and the Government is happy to keep raising billions for Israel through blood-soaked bonds. On both counts, the Government is taking cover under mysterious legal opinion, but there is nowhere to hide. The Oireachtas’s own experts back the legality of our Bill and many of our country’s top lawyers support the inclusion of services in the occupied territories Bill.

In the flurry of interviews he has done on this issue, the Tánaiste has claimed there is no policy difference between the positions of the Government and Opposition on Gaza. Let us be clear about this: there is an ocean between us. An ocean of political will separates us from the Government on this.

Kevin Delaney, a pensioner, was arrested last night for shouting his frustration from the Visitors Gallery of this very Chamber. Would you blame him? Sophie Ní Choimín has now gone a week without food because the Government is not acting strongly enough or fast enough. Last week, I spoke about the brave women who intervened at Shannon Airport because the Government will not defend our sovereign airspace. Tá muintir na hÉireann ag seasamh sa bhearna bhaoil. It is simply not good enough that men and women in this State are putting their bodies and reputations on the line.

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