Barry Heneghan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)

I would like to join with Deputy Gogarty's point about the emails we get. We all get thousands of emails about what we need to do, but we also get the negative ones from the other side. After I came back from my humanitarian mission, I can sympathise with the Deputy about how there is a strong lobby against this. We have to really focus on this. The decision should be straightforward. When I was sitting over there, I was supporting the Government. I still am. I was told that if we amended it, it would be done within six months. It has now been 11 months. The only time I have ever voted against this Government was for Palestine and I will continue to do that. I am committed to the programme for Government. I am not shouting at the Minister of State, Deputy Moran. He was in negotiations with me and knew I was fighting for Palestine in there. We have a commitment for this. Before the election, the Government parties had a commitment to this. We have the strongest mandate possible. Look at what the Spanish are doing. They have done it. Look at what South Africa is doing. I do commend the Government on joining the ICJ case but I am disappointed with the delays, the excuses and, as everyone has said, the verbal dances. I met Senator Frances Black and she has shown so much patience, dignity and resolve. The rest of us should learn from her. She carried this legislation further and for longer than she should have had to. Patience cannot be extended any longer. Again, I urge the Government not to oppose this motion but to immediately enact it.

The Geneva Convention did not fall out of the sky. "Never again" means for everyone. I have been on the phone to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank who I am now friends with. There is a young Palestinian living in Marino in my constituency, Amir. His family are in Gaza. His house has been blown up. His mother and father were doctors. All of their life savings are gone. They have nothing to go back to. How can I knock on his door again and not tell him that I did everything I could possibly do for him? That is the only reason I will not ever do it again. The international community has suggested that we did not know, that we were not sure, that we needed more time. It has been too long for that. Hundreds of thousands are dead. We do know. It is on our screens. How many reports have there been from the UN? Every country is now recognising the Palestinian state. What good is recognising a state that is on its knees, completely crumbled? I recognise what Deputy Gogarty said; we do know occupation. When our ancestors with grass-stained faces were on the side of the ditch during the occupation of country, would we not have liked another country to stand with us? We did have the Choctaw Nation. We did have the Ottoman Empire deliver three ships of grain, despite the UK insisting that they send only one ship. What country was in the Ottoman Empire at the time? Palestine. They were under occupation at that time but we will not talk about that.

The Irish people outside this Chamber sometimes know about moral clarity. Over the past year, I have seen thousands of young people on the streets. Many of them are just so frustrated. When I am going to these doors, this is one of the main issues people still see. We need to do it immediately. These people out protesting are not extremists. They are not disrupters. They are the conscience of this country. I saw it in my own constituency two weeks ago with the Hope Palestine action, great northsiders who cycled and raised money for Doctors Without Borders. They understood that humanitarian organisations are often the last lifeline when politics fails.

I stood on the flotilla. When we were illegally abducted by the IOF, when I had a gun pointed at my head and was called an Irish terrorist, when we were mocked, I was told that Ireland is the most antisemitic country in the world. We are not antisemitic. We had Israelis on the flotilla with us who are against the current government. I have spoken to Israelis who are against what the current government is doing. When we are called antisemitic, we need to be clear and say we are not antisemitic. We are anti-Zionist and against what the current Israeli state is doing. When a TD and a Senator are illegally abducted, mocked and brutalised against every international law - look at where we were abducted - does Israel not have to abide by international law? It clearly has not. All the activists who went on those flotillas did not do it to be on the selfie yacht, as Israel portrayed. They did it to bring aid and open a humanitarian corridor to a population that is facing genocide and famine. Doctors Without Borders was in here last week talking about the struggles it is having getting the aid in. This is not directed at the Minister of State. I have spoken to him and know he is on the same side on this.

Ireland has always claimed to stand with the oppressed, from the anti-apartheid struggle, which I heard Deputies mention, to the Good Friday Agreement. We have never been neutral on injustice and we must not be neutral now. We have such great political power as a nation. As a small population, we are respected worldwide, which is why the enactment of this Bill will hopefully trigger more countries to act, like Spain has already done and as Belgium, Norway and other countries are now considering in their parliaments. Passing the occupied territories Bill does not make us radical. It makes us consistent and credible. It makes us Irish. We have done this before with South Africa. We triggered a bulldozer effect that led to peace and a solution. As Deputy Gogarty says, we know famine, occupation and hunger strikes. I bring attention also to the prisoners across England engaged in a rolling hunger strike for Palestine, refusing food to protest the repression of the Palestine Action group and the denial of the basic legal rights they are facing. Some are already in serious medical distress, with healthcare withheld and punitive measures imposed, yet they continue their strike in solidarity with the Palestinian people. They are joined by prisoners internationally, from Italy to the United States, showing that this struggle crosses borders. Their courage and refusal to be silenced, and their willingness to put their own bodies on the line, demand our attention and our action.

I ask the Government today to honour the commitment it made to the Irish people, to honour the commitments it made to me during the Government formation and to honour the people who voted on those commitments. I always say that in politics you give a contract to your constituency on what you are planning to do. If you do not break that contract with your constituency, it will not break its contract with you. However, we are breaking that contract. We said we would enact the occupied territories Bill. Eleven months on and it has been kicked down the road. I ask the Government to honour its commitments and to honour international law - legal obligations we proudly say we defend - because history will not remember the delays but it will remember how and whether we acted. Right now, we are not acting.

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