Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I just cannot express how deeply disappointed we are by the tactics and the lack of crucial content as regards this motion.

First are the tactics of landing us with an amendment to the motion literally after the Order of Business was due to begin, which would not allow us to table any amendments to that amendment. What that does, in effect, is prevent us from debating key amendments that we believe are crucial to achieving the balance people are talking about. I will tell the House exactly what I mean by that.

Sinn Féin was very happy to support the first lines of the Government motion, "unreservedly condemns the brutal attack by Hamas in Israel on Saturday, 7th October ... last, indiscriminately, and systematically targeting civilians, and resulting in over 1,400 deaths". We were happy to support that, and Government Members know that because of the amendments we tabled earlier. We then suggested they include an amendment to state that we unreservedly condemn "Israel's brutal assault on the civilian population of Gaza which has resulted in more than 3,000 deaths, including over 1,000 children to date in breach of international law". The Government excluded that from the motion. In fact - and this is contrary to what the Leader said earlier - nowhere in this motion do we see the words "condemn" and "Israel" together, and that is entirely unacceptable. The only time we see the word "condemn" in the motion is, quite correctly, in respect of Hamas. Nowhere does it occur in respect of Israel. I ask you, a Chathaoirligh, where is the balance in that.

I have to go further. The number of children - take the children alone - who have been killed in Gaza this week by carpet bombing is at least 1,000. That is before what happened in the hospital yesterday evening. We do not know definitively who carried out that bombing in the hospital but we do know that Israel warned and instructed the hospital to evacuate because of its plans to carpet-bomb it. If no one in Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael or the Greens is able to stand up and condemn Israel after 1,000 children have died in the past week, how many children will it take? It is absolutely shameless of Government Members. We wanted to work with them. We gave them amendments we thought would be reasonable. How can it not be reasonable simply to call out Israel and condemn it for the carpet bombing and the mass murder of the past week, as we equally condemn Hamas? I am genuinely shocked by Government Members' actions and, as I said to the Leader earlier, those actions will come back to them. The fact is that she and her colleagues refused to use the words "condemn" and "Israel" after the week we have just seen. It is more than shameful; it is one of the lowest points certainly in my time in the Seanad and it is not good enough.

I also note that Government Members refused to include reference to breaches of international law as regards the forced displacement. They did not like those words, evidently, because, again, they took part of our amendment but dropped the words "forced displacement". Are they disputing that forced displacement is what is happening to the people of Gaza? If not, why not put the words in? There is reference to the cutting off of water, fuel, food and medical supplies and the destruction to civilian infrastructure. We say that that amounts to collective punishment. I congratulate my colleague, Senator Joe O'Reilly, on using the words "collective punishment". He is absolutely right. Unfortunately, his Government dropped those words from this motion. Nowhere does it mention collective punishment, even though every one of us in this Chamber knows that that is what happening and that is what we are witnessing at the moment - the collective punishment of the Palestinian people, the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, the mass murder of the Palestinian people. All of that is happening in front of our eyes, and Government Members cannot use the word "condemn". Shame on them.