Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)

There is an immediate need for the Government to intervene to end the delay in evacuating very sick and injured children from Gaza to Ireland for urgent medical treatment. Last year, as the Taoiseach knows, the Government agreed to evacuate 30 of these children. There were two successful evacuations of 12 children in December and May. However, the vital evacuation of the remaining 18 children has been stopped due to bureaucratic wrangling within Government Departments over visas. At least eight children were identified by the World Health Organization and the HSE for urgent medical evacuation in early June. A month on, they are still waiting. Their medical assessments are complete, the doctors are ready, the hospitals are ready to receive and treat these children, but the Government is stalling.

Time is of the essence here. It is a matter of life and death for these children. They survived a genocide being carried out before the eyes of the world. I have corresponded with both the Tánaiste and the Minister for Health to advocate for their immediate evacuation. The Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, tells me she is bringing a memo to Cabinet to seek Government approval for what she calls a more humanitarian approach to the evacuations and that she fully expects, in her words, to welcome the next group of children in the autumn. That is months away. That is an eternity away. The only humanitarian approach is to get these children out now. It is important the Government memo does not solely identify Egypt as the evacuation route for these children. The Rafah crossing is closed and there is no direct route from Gaza to Cairo. Countries such as Jordan must be included. As the Taoiseach knows, Jordan is already facilitating evacuations and has offered to help.

Every week, every day and every hour their evacuation out of Gaza is delayed puts these children's lives at increased risk. There is every chance that these children will be killed as they wait, while Government Departments push paper around, tick boxes and argue among themselves. That threat and likelihood is very real, very present and very immediate for these children. We know that children from an earlier group previously identified for medical evacuation from Gaza to Ireland have died while waiting to come here in the horror of Israel's genocide. Doctors in Ireland who are standing by to treat these children and are ready to save their lives are very worried for them. Dr. Morgan McMonagle, a trauma surgeon who has worked on humanitarian missions in Gaza, puts the reality for these children in very stark terms. He said that by autumn, there is a very good chance that Gaza simply will not exist at the rate things are going.

It is unacceptable that the Government puts bureaucratic wrangling over the lives of very sick, injured children. Tá mé ag fiafraí den Taoiseach a ladar a chur sa scéal agus a chinntiú go mbeidh na leanaí seo, atá tinn agus gortaithe, slánaithe ar an bpointe boise ó Gaza go hÉirinn don chúram leighis atá de dhíth orthu. The Government's proposed timeframe of autumn will be too late for some, or perhaps even all, of these children. This is a matter of life and death. They have been waiting since early June. It is vital that the Taoiseach, as Head of Government, intervene and expedite their arrival in Ireland with no further delay. I ask him to do this with urgency.

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