Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As I so often have the pleasure of doing, I support every word said by Senator Black in regard to Yemen. I attended that meeting on Tuesday as well. The situation is truly shocking. The figures which have come from the United Nations are horrific: a minium of 10,000 children have died since 2015, 377,000 Yemenis have died since 2015 and 4 million Yemenis have been displaced. It is worth bearing in mind as well that the bombs that are dropping on Yemen are dropped with the full support of Britain and the US. The US has troops in the United Arab Emirates helping to organise those bombs.Every one of those troops comes through Shannon Airport; every one of them. When we have that conversation on neutrality, let us reflect on all of that and our unfortunate role over the past seven years in this awful war. Thankfully, we are all agreed on Ukraine and the motion we are going to pass later is absolutely necessary and important but I do not understand why we do not have a conversation about sanctions against Saudi Arabia. In fact, quite the opposite is the case. A Fianna Fáil Minister went to Saudi Arabia two weeks ago to ask how we can do more business with that country, as it continues to drop bombs on Yemen and as children continue to die in Yemen. I genuinely do not understand why one set of lives has such value while another set of lives apparently has none. I would ask everyone to reflect on that.

I was not planning to speak on that topic but did so because Senator Black spoke so eloquently on it. I want to raise the fact that at University Hospital Limerick this morning there were 90 people on trolleys. There was a powerful article in a number of newspapers today on people in the emergency zone. One patient, an elderly man in his eighties, had a 54-hour wait on a trolley before getting an oncology appointment. In one zone with a capacity of 22 patients, there were 52 patients with just three nurses allocated. The Minister visited recently and it was a welcome visit but I stand by everything I said in that regard. It would be great to have the Minister come to the House so that we can have a conversation on that topic.