Erin McGreehan (Louth, Fianna Fail)

To be very straight up, Gaza is not enduring any conflict; it is enduring a genocide. More than 66,000 Palestinians have been killed or murdered, with one in three being children. Families are being wiped out. I find it hard to reconcile the number of mothers who have watched their babies die and the number of babies and children who have sat with their parents who have been murdered alongside them. It is irreconcilable in my mind to think of all that horror and what the children of Gaza are bringing into their futures, if they survive this.

The starvation that is happening is not a consequence of war; it is a weapon of war. It is what Israel is putting down upon them and is wielding to absolutely destroy and break an entire people. Some 14 hospitals are barely functioning. What is most devastating to me is that the world is not stopping this. Countries like Ireland are leading the way but when you think things cannot get any worse, it goes lower. You wonder how bad it can get before the countries of the world stand up and have some sort of morality. I am glad Ireland has led the way. Ireland knows what oppression is, what famine is and what it is to see our land, our voice and our dignity stripped away.

The Taoiseach, Deputy Martin, told the UN that peace is not a slogan; it is a responsibility. I absolutely agree but responsibility without action is complicity. Recognition of Palestine means nothing if in the same breath we trade with a regime that starves the Palestinian people. Recognition of Palestine cannot be a symbolic gesture while we continue business as usual with Israel. If we recognise Palestine's right to exist, we must defend it with more than words. That is why Ireland must, at an EU level, demand sanctions. That means suspending the EU-Israel trade agreement, which rewards apartheid. It means an immediate arms embargo. No Irish company or EU institution should profit from weapons that are raining down on Gaza. It means using every single diplomatic lever we have to push Europe away from complicity and towards accountability. I believe the future of Europe relies on how it reacts and moves on and how it upholds human rights in Palestine. If it fails here, what hope do we have for the European Union in the future?

I have to take a moment to commend the extraordinary bravery of the humanitarian flotilla that is sailing to Gaza at the minute. Ordinary men and women, including colleagues here in the Oireachtas, are risking their lives to deliver food, medicine and hope where governments have failed, and where the world has failed. They embody our conscience and should not stand alone. The world has to protect and support them. Ireland is limited but our voice is not. We must remember that Ireland is not too small. We were never too small to matter. We were not too small to stand beside Africa, we were not too small to oppose the Iraq War and we are not too small to stand with Gaza now.

We must continue to insist on a two-state solution, to insist the people of Palestine have a future and insist that they have their identity and their voice.

The people of Gaza do not ask for pity; they want a future and they want justice. Justice begins in chambers like this and begins by us all talking about it around the world, but with Ireland refusing to look away, standing up, refusing to wash our hands of this, choosing to act, choosing to stand out at the highest level, including at the UN, and speaking about the genocide and the atrocities being rained down on the Palestinian people.

We all know history will record this moment. We will all be judged. We will remember where Ireland stood when the Palestinian people starved and bled. The question now is, when will the rest of the world stand with us?

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