Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

At the outset, I welcome the Tánaiste and I thank him for his sure-footed, excellent handling of this sensitive issue. It has been a desperate issue over the past number of days. I will quickly acknowledge the presence of Ambassador Dana Erlich and Jeremy Wilmshurst from the UK embassy, with whom I have picked up a good friendship over the years.

It has become ritualistic, but it is not insincere to say that it is very deep and real for all of us. It has to happen on every occasion that we condemn outright the actions of Hamas. That is not at issue. That is not in question. The atrocities of 7 October stand condemned and are wrong, full stop. There is no question about that. That begs the question about the degree and nature of the response. It is our contention, and we say this in the spirit of friendship and goodwill to our Israeli friends, that it is not humanitarian, right or realistic to talk about moving more than 1 million people down the south when the south does not have the infrastructure and where there is mass overcrowding, etc. That is not a runner. It is not a runner to cut off supplies of food or water. That is a given. We welcome the slight improvement by the agreement to open up a corridor yesterday. It is not enough, but it might well be the beginning of something, and we hope that it is. All we can do in Ireland is push in that direction. Everything has to be in the context of international law and humanitarian principles. Of course - and this has become a very important part of the narrative - all speakers abhor what happened at the hospital. That goes without saying and that will have to be properly investigated.

Having stated and left no ambiguity about our positions, we must now get to the nature of where things are and what the realities are. It is my firm view, as the Tánaiste alluded to, that the Irish position should be firmly in the de-escalation zone. We are and should be in favour of de-escalation, avoiding a regional conflict, avoiding atrocities and avoiding civilian, human and individual deaths. It is in that context that a political process must obviously arise.

Ultimately, a political process will have to arise because, as happens with all conflicts, there will come a day when the conflict will end, but there may be sheer Armageddon in the process, huge loss of life, huge personal trauma, tragedies and a desperate situation. Ultimately, it must end and politics must come in and decide a solution. It is my contention that we in Ireland, as a neutral country with moral authority and high standing in the EU and internationally, should be speaking about a political process immediately. We should be speaking about de-escalation all the time.

We need a humanitarian corridor to be properly opened and we need a ceasefire, talks and political action. The question must arise regarding what happens when the conflict ends and afterwards. As Senator McDowell so eloquently put it, assuming that there is the elimination and eradication of Hamas, what will one do next? There still must be co-existence. The settlements over the years have made a two-state solution progressively more difficult. The situation is complex and there can be no doubt that an accumulation of past actions has contributed to what happened on 7 October, although this is not to say for a moment that it was correct. It is not. We have to look back, but the real thing is to look forward to what happens next.

I think the thesis that Hamas wanted Israel to respond in anger is true. I think it was a strategy. One has to assume that it has an intimate knowledge of Gaza and what is in the underground tunnels. It is a bit simplistic to assume that every member of the Palestinian community will not fight and will leave the fighting to Hamas. That will not be the case. As President Biden obliquely admitted, this could become Israel’s Iraq. This could become a long, horrendous conflict where there is loss of life. I think it is a strategy and it has been thought-out. The risk of regional conflict increases with every atrocity. This therefore needs careful consideration. Truthfully, it needs a political solution. It needs talks.

Ultimately, we in Ireland had to come to the Good Friday Agreement and that should be a world example. We came to the Good Friday Agreement and we have to come to an equivalent here. One could argue - and there will be people watching or observing this who will say this - that this is a utopian, naïve or ridiculous idea in the context. It might be all of those things, but it is never wrong to aim for what is right, to try to save human life or save people from trauma. Every Irish voice from now on should be asking for a de-escalation, to put a political process in place and to put talks in place. Let there be an acknowledgement that wrong has been done. This arises from collective wrongs and it of course is wrong itself. There is a very simplistic but nice saying we all grew up with and that we have all heard, which is “Two wrongs don’t make a right”, and these old, maybe slightly trite sayings still hold value, and they are right.Two wrongs have never made a right. They do not make a right in this instance either. That must be the thrust of our response. We cannot lose sight of the suffering of the Israeli and Palestinian people. There is significant suffering across the board. Everything to alleviate that suffering on a humanitarian level and every other level must be put in place. Politics must be put working and there must be de-escalation. I sadly watched every analysis of this on television, as did all present. It is such a tragedy, and we are watching it in comfort. I agree with the view that it would be a mistake to allow this to develop into a full-scale. It is important to pull back from the brink now.