Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)

Every day people in Gaza play what is called "the hunger games". After two months without a shred of food, milk, medicine or flour coming into the territory, they brave Israeli army bullets at feeding stations that have been set up, for the chance of a bag of flour, a tin of food or whatever for their starving families. We had indelible images from the Holocaust. These will be the indelible images from this holocaust against the Palestinians and history will record that this has been sanctioned and facilitated by the EU and US.

Today, we saw the Taoiseach is at the EU summit. He will be blocked in any move to take action against Israel under the trade agreement. It is backed by bigger countries. The Tánaiste has repeatedly said we must use all levers at our disposal to end this genocide. Why does he not use all the levers he has at his disposal? We cannot wait for the EU to act in concert.

The Government is introducing an occupied territories Bill, six years after it was introduced to the Dáil, just before the recess and 20 months into a genocide, but it is denuding the Bill because it does not include services. It does not have even half the power of the original Bill. Why are services not included in this Bill? The International Court of Justice, ICJ, makes no distinction between goods and services. The settlements are illegal and all trade with them should be ended. Some 75% of people in Ireland want the full occupied territories Bill to be passed. The Palestinian people need sanctions and there has been no legal advice to the contrary. Is this due to lobbying from companies like Airbnb that might be affected by this?

The occupied territories Bill only covers a fraction of our trade with Israel. According to the United Nations Comtrade, our trade with Israel is worth €3.3 billion, the second highest after the US and above China. While the genocide was in full swing last year, for example, Ireland was the largest buyer of Israeli integrated circuits, while the Tánaiste was Taoiseach, €3 billion worth of integrated circuits that are used ironically in our health system while the people of Gaza were having their health system destroyed. I will not even go into the companies that are here and benefitting and part of the genocide, but I will ask the Tánaiste to use the lever of Shannon Airport and our airspace. Shannon Airport has become in effect a logistical military hub for the US.

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