Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

There is very little left to say about Gaza that has not already been said and there is almost nothing left in Gaza that has not already been destroyed. We are past the point of shock and statements; what remains is rubble, mass graves and the silence of children whose names we will never know. We welcome this motion and support every line in it but we have to be honest. Ireland, though it has gone further than most because the bar has been set very low, still has not done close to enough. In that delay, tens of thousands have died in hospitals, schools and in their beds and now they are dying in hunger. For months almost no aid has been allowed into Palestine and in all of that time, the solution being offered is one where Palestinians are told that if they want to eat, they must first submit their faces. We have reached a point where facial recognition is being used as a condition for bread, where desperate families are being asked to surrender their biometric data in exchange for rice or flour, data that they know could be used to track, target and erase them. This is not aid; it is not even close. It is surveillance disguised as compassion. I want to say to every humanitarian agency trying to work on the ground and to every international partner watching on in horror that we see what is happening and we will echo their calls. Palestinians deserve food without fear, safety without strings and a world that does not treat their lives as conditional. It is often said by Members on the Government side of the Chamber that nobody here has a monopoly on compassion and I fully accept that. However, it must also be accepted that we do not have the same legislative authority as the Government at this point. The Government said on 5 July 2024 that the International Court of Justice's advisory opinion declaring Israel's occupation illegal was a game changer but that was almost a year ago. Just before the general election, on 5 November at a meeting of the justice committee, the now Taoiseach and then Tánaiste said that advancing the occupied territories Bill would be a priority for the next Government. At Fianna Fáil's manifesto launch in November, the party said it was an urgent commitment and Fine Gael said the same and yet last week we were told that a memo is going to Cabinet and that it may be the autumn before a Bill is finally ready. That is just excuses and cowardice. We all understand that this is difficult but we can simplify it by saying that there is a genocide happening. Members of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael recognised last week that there is a genocide happening. Our obligation under the genocide convention is not just simply to call it out but to prevent it, to do all in our powers and take all of the actions that we can take in response to the calls that have been made throughout this Chamber. We absolutely can be better. If we are recognising genocide, we must prevent it.

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