Neale Richmond (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House once again and I appreciate all the great work he, his officials, the Tánaiste and the Minister of State, Deputy McEntee, are doing in the Department at a very difficult time. I speak in place of our regular foreign affairs spokesperson, Senator Joe O'Reilly, who unfortunately cannot be here due to parliamentary business.Like everyone in this Chamber - I think it is a universal opinion - I was absolutely appalled by the atrocities carried out last week. While it is right to acknowledge that Hamas was complicit in an element of it, the over-reaction by the Israeli Government was truly shocking. The most shocking thing is that last week was not the first time this has happened. It is absolutely right that the use of live ammunition be condemned. The manner in which we react to it as a country, as a Government and as a people will allow others to judge how we are contributing to this situation.

To be frank, Irish people and particularly politicians are obsessed with the Middle East. I do not mean that in any way negatively. We regularly have statements on the Middle East. Issues relating to the Middle East are regularly raised on the Order of Business. When I was a member of a local authority, we considered motions relating to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East every couple of months. We are right to be obsessed with this part of the world, which I visited last year, because we have invested socially, culturally, economically and emotionally in everything that is going on there. As the Minister of State said, Irish Aid provides €10 million to the Palestinian people every year. We have embassies in Tel Aviv and Ramallah. Scores of workers from Ireland are working in non-governmental agencies across Gaza. As Senator Lawless might confirm, there is a surprisingly large Irish diaspora living in Israel. A couple of drinks in Molly Bloom's Irish pub in Tel Aviv made that quite clear to me not so long ago. We have invested in this part of the world. I strongly believe that if we are going to have a positive influence on it, we need to stay invested in it. This means we need to keep our embassies in Tel Aviv and Ramallah open and we need to keep the Israeli ambassador in Dublin. Any efforts we make in terms of sanctions or other actions should be made in a co-ordinated way through the EU, in line with other agreements. Isolated actions by the South African and Turkish Governments are great for a couple of days of news headlines, but they do not really have an impact.