Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)

The Taoiseach stands before us shamefaced today to tell us that the occupied territories Bill will not include services. He does this on a day when 21 people were shot like moving targets at a fair as they queued up for food this morning. We are told that 56,000 people are now dead in the genocide. The Lancet tells us the figure is much higher, as does the Harvard database, which puts the figure at 377,000. We have had three judgments from the highest courts in the world, the ICJ and the ICC, including an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and a plausible genocide case. The Taoiseach stands here seven years after an occupied territories Bill was brought to these Houses and tells us barefacedly that he will not include services and is now going to look for advice from the Attorney General. Does the Taoiseach know how much trade there is with Israel as we speak? It has grown exponentially. Imports from Israel totalled €3.26 billion in 2024 while exports totalled €1.6 billion. The Taoiseach stands here today while the airports are being used to transport American weapons and shamefacedly refuses to do the most minimal thing possible, which is to include services.

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