Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)

I too welcome this joint motion and express my solidarity with everybody aboard the flotilla. I welcome the families of those Irish people on board those 40 boats. I will use my time to recall why these people are on the flotilla in the first place. Across those 40 boats, there are people from all over the world including politicians, artists, activists and ordinary people. They are united by a love for humanity and for the international rules-based order that we have failed to protect and that is ignored by the US and Israel in carrying out this genocidal campaign, and in time and again committing the most horrific of war crimes with impunity before our very eyes on the Palestinian people, whose right to self-determination and to existence itself has been met with violence and erasure for so long. Those on the flotilla are there because their governments, including the Irish Government, have failed to lift the blockade while men, women and children are starved and bombed. While we highlight the danger facing these people, we must also highlight that their message; the risk they take and the danger they face pales in comparison to what is faced by ordinary people in Gaza, who did not choose to take any risks, who simply had the bad luck to be Palestinian and who are at the mercy of the genocidal Israeli regime.

The importance of ending the blockade cannot be overemphasised. Every day, food that we have sent as aid rots at checkpoints and warehouses while, a few kilometres away, people starve. Babies left with no parents by bombs are left with no formula by our failure. People die needlessly because they lack the most basic medicines, pain relief, shelter and clean water. When I speak with Irish healthcare workers, the stories they tell me are harrowing. They tell me of trying to treat patients and save lives in a health system that has collapsed, that has been bombed and that is threatened. We must not allow the destruction of a people to continue without doing everything in our power to lift that siege.

I will speak briefly to the peace plan that was recently announced. This US peace plan, like any peace plan, is good news, but we need to reflect on the reality of the situation. It is not a peace agreement yet. Input from the people of Gaza has not yet been engaged. Trump and Netanyahu's ultimatum threatening consequences should it not be accepted fills me with dread as the people of Gaza are once again threatened with annihilation in a process in which they have no voice. We have been here before. We must always push for peace and diplomacy but we do not need an agreement to be in place to prevent and stop genocide. In fact, we have an obligation under international law not to stand by or to wait and see. We have a positive obligation to do something.

As regards what we can do to protect those brave humanitarians and support the flotilla, while this motion is very welcome, it is necessary to fulfil our obligations to the 22 brave Irish citizens, which include Members of these Houses, who are risking their lives on the flotilla. There is so much more we can do. We need to engage diplomatically with the Spanish and Italian authorities, which have launched observer missions. We need to step up, if needs be, to provide whatever financial and logistical support we can. We have used our voice on the world stage before to come together to ensure safe passage and an end to siege. I admire the courage of those on the flotilla but, to honour it, we must match that courage with our own. We can and should act decisively.

I will conclude with a point I have made in every contribution I have made on Gaza in the year I have been a TD, starting with my maiden speech. The Irish Government has a unique mandate not matched by any other government across the world. The solidarity and volume of the voice of the Irish people with the people of Palestine as they go through these horrors gives the Government something no other government has: a clear mandate without obfuscation to act. I urge it to do so.

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