Niall Ó Donnghaile (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Senator Norris made a really worthwhile and valuable contribution and then he says nonsense like that. Ahed’s arrest and trial in a military court shows that two separate legal systems exist, depending on whether one is a Palestinian or an Israeli settler, and this goes to the heart of Israel’s enforced apartheid regime.

Ahed is one of at least 1,400 Palestinian children who have been prosecuted in special Israeli military courts over the past three years. However, illegal Israeli colonial settlers are tried in civil courts. It is time for the Irish Government to move past rhetoric and statements on Israel’s occupation of Palestine. The Irish Government has rightly stated that these colonial settlements are illegal under international law. This is not stopping their expansion. Every year they continue to grow. Meanwhile, fruit and other goods originating in the illegal settlements have appeared for sale on Irish shelves. It is time for us to stop sustaining the injustice of these colonial settlements. It is time for us to once and for all create a legal framework to ban from our State goods created on the back of human rights abuses and crippling injustice.

The people of Ireland know only too well the horrendous reality of colonisation and illegal plantations. Irish people know the brutal reality of military occupation. We must stand, shoulder to shoulder, with our brothers and sisters in Palestine facing this injustice today, and today's Bill provides us with the perfect opportunity to do so. We have a duty to not only condemn Israel’s illegal occupation and aggression against Palestine but also to challenge it and to support the people of Palestine. We cannot on the one hand condemn illegal colonial settlements and on the other hand freely trade with them. Our words ring hollow otherwise.

It is very disappointing that Fianna Fail and Fine Gael Seanadóirí are tonight sitting on their hands where supporting this Bill is concerned. That is not good enough for the oppressed people of Palestine, nor indeed for the people who vote for both parties and would support this modest proposal. Where would the people of South Africa be today if workers like those in Dunnes Stores here in Dublin, and similar stores around the world, had not organised and boycotted South African goods?