Ned O'Sullivan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I ask the Leader to consider holding a debate in due course on anti-Semitism in the Republic of Ireland. Most Members here will have seen the type of toxicity that is on Twitter and other social media in regard to members of the Jewish persuasion. A recent report by David Collier highlights this in a very serious way. If Members want to research him online, I assure them they will not find it very pleasant reading, given that some of the comments, tweets and posts are of the most heinous nature.

We all know the history of anti-Semitism. It is as old as time. It has been throughout Europe and all over the world, culminating, naturally, in the Holocaust, which was the worst example of it. We see the programmes all the time on the concentration camps and I hope they will be continue to be seen on our television screens so younger generations will know what the Jewish people had to undergo at that time.

I am happy to be from Listowel, which is one of the few places in Ireland which has a Holocaust memorial, which was erected about 20 years ago by the late, lamented Mervyn Taylor of the Labour Party, who died just recently. Most Irish people are very reasonable about racial differences and all the rest of that but there is definitely an element somewhere that seems to be unable to escape this atavistic anti-Jewish sentiment that is so evil.

It is in that context that I have to express regret at the decision by our very well known, popular and successful author, Sally Rooney, to deprive her fans who like to read in Hebrew of being able to read her any further in Hebrew because she is not allowing her books to be published in Hebrew hereafter, ostensibly as a protest against Israeli policies. First, not all Hebrew readers are living in Israel, so it seems a very ill-judged protest to me. It sort of opens the door to that sort of cultural hatred that we have witnessed in the past. Book burning was one of the most prominent ways of attacking people of the Jewish persuasion and whereas this is not book burning, it is not altogether unaligned to it. I think it is ironic that this should be her decision. Are we going to have a situation where authors will disallow their books from being published in Chinese because of the totalitarian regime in China, or in Russian in Russia? Will Irish authors stop allowing their books to be published in the UK because of the despicable English Brexit policies? Where is it going to end? The Leader might be able to organise such a debate for us at this time.