Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal East, Labour)

I thank the Tánaiste and I welcome the swift and stern diplomatic response we had to this incident through the United Nations. As the Tánaiste has said, this is a pattern of behaviour. There is no sense this pattern will stop. We are lucky there were no injuries or loss of life but if, God forbid, we see further instances such as this or an escalation, what is open to us as a State in terms of escalating actions against Israel? Will we continue to demarche through the United Nations? We know that legislatively we have the occupied Palestinian territories Bill coming through the foreign affairs committee and we will debate it there but what else can be done? We had a delegation from the Palestinian Authority meet the foreign affairs committee to discuss issues such as planning and water services. Senior operations people gave an absolutely stark vista of Gaza, the West Bank and everywhere in terms of Palestine and Israel's actions. This pattern we are witnessing in terms of peacekeepers is just one of a host of aggressive actions by Israel against Palestinians and peacekeeping.

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