Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I call on the Leader to arrange a debate over the course of the next number of weeks with regard to the ongoing Middle East situation, in particular the plight of the Palestinian people and the refugees. During the past year I visited a number of refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon and elsewhere. The appalling conditions in which those people are living, particularly the Syrian and Palestinian people, is nothing short of a reflection on the entire world and its failure to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

There has been a good deal of discussion on the referendums. My perspective is that both referendums are absolutely premature. The fact that we would seek to dismantle some of our democratic institutions without any meaningful attempt at political reform is strange, especially at a time when people are suffering as a consequence of the economic crisis we have experienced during the past five years. Any fair-minded person would acknowledge that a major contributory factor was the failure of these Houses to fulfil their obligations to the people effectively over a period by not being set up in a sufficiently robust or open manner. During the summer we saw in a debate the authoritarian bullying of members of a particular party who took a particular perspective on a Bill from a conscientious position. They were totally dismissed and thrown out of that party as a consequence. That has no place in a modern civilised constructive democracy.