Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)

The 7 October terror attacks on Israel are to be condemned outright but the eye-for-an-eye approach adopted by the Israeli state since has been indefensible. The bombing of hospitals, schools and tents and the killing of children and babies, including newborn babies in hospitals, is reprehensible. It is the worst we have seen in our lifetime. What is happening is not a war anymore; it is ethnic cleansing, genocide and, more recently, the weaponising of food. The British army was a bad actor on this island for many centuries but even in the worst of days, when its cities were being bombed by the terror organisations of the IRA, it never retaliated by bombing and shooting the civilian population of Ireland.

It is important that the European Union move more in step. The European bloc was very quickly able to combine and impose sanctions on the Putin regime following the declaration of war on Ukraine but there does not seem to be that same unanimity when it comes to Gaza. Ireland is doing a lot but the European bloc can do an awful lot more. I am delighted that the occupied territories Bill will finally be enacted. The progression of that needs to be swift. It needs to include services. However, while it is important, it is a small quantity of goods and services in the overall scheme of trade in the European Union. What is really needed is that we have sanctions on Israel by the European bloc of nations, not just a stand-alone occupied territories Bill adopted here in Ireland.

Others have spoken of this. I, too, studied history in college. The Israeli people have a very tragic history of their own. Looking at the CVs of several Cabinet ministers, they are children of survivors of the Holocaust. They should understand better than anyone what genocide, the loss of life, the weaponising of food and the killing of children involve. They do not. What is happening at the moment is disgusting. It is the genocide of our time. While the Irish Government is doing a lot, the European Union can do an awful lot more. I ask the Minister of State to take that message from this House to Europe that we need to move en bloc and it needs to be in the realm of sanctions next time, not just debates in the chamber.

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