Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

He had no interest in telling anything but the truth. Senator Bacik followed up by asking whether the Irish Government will continue its position on that. It will do so, because the views of the UN Secretary General must be respected. It does not matter what the outcome is, but there must be an investigation as this weaponry is just not acceptable.

Senator Ormonde also asked about the Israeli elections. I fear that these elections will have an impact on the situation. Senator Norris rightly pointed out that the Israeli elections clearly had a significant impact on what we saw. There has been a general move to the right in Israel, and there has been some fragmentation. That is an internal Israeli matter, but it will have an impact.

Senator Norris's suggestion that Ireland has been less than forceful on the issue of EU-Israeli relations rather misrepresents our position. Our position at the EU Council has always been that there must be a relationship between the improvement of EU-Israeli relations and Israeli activity in the area, and sometimes we have been on our own on this. I would like to see EU-Israeli relations improving because the precursor of that would be an improvement in the normalisation of relations between the Israelis and their neighbours.