Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank, in particular, Senator Black because I suppose the first time I heard about Palestine was approximately 20 years ago thanks to her work. Most people know the Senator for her songs but I knew her for her work on Palestine. I got involved in a Palestinian support group to fundraise many years ago, thanks to the Senator. This did not start on 7 October. Far from it, it has been going on for decades.

This is an important motion. It is great to see the whole House supporting it; iis good that we are unified on this.

It is like Senator Higgins was saying, what can we do? Every week, at my party's parliamentary party meeting, we are all rattling our brains asking, "What else can we do?", because it is so difficult to sit by and see what is happening on a daily basis.

It is good that the Attorney General is going tomorrow to the International Court of Justice. This is going on since July last, but he will be heard tomorrow speaking on behalf of the Irish Government. That will be useful. It is the same criminal justice court that South Africa has been engaging with more recently. It is good that is happening. The court will hear from more than 50 countries over the course of the hearings. It will hear Ireland's Attorney General, Mr. Rossa Fanning SC, tomorrow morning. It is something, one is clutching at straws here.

I also found it amazing to see all the ordinary people of Ireland fundraising and going out on protests. It is so moving to see people taking action. We had a meeting with the Commissioner-General, Mr. Philippe Lazzarini, of UNRWA last week. It was amazing. Mr. Lazzarini explained how the money is so useful. It is brilliant that we put the €20 million in because Mr. Lazzarini said there is over €450 million in funding on pause from countries around Europe because of that stupid story that went out that has not even been proved right about people in UNRWA. Out of 30,000 employees, apparently 12 were involved with Hamas somehow, but one wonders is it true. Even if it is, out of 30,000 people, is that a reason to pause funding for these poor people of Palestine? It is insane. It is good that we decided to increase our funding to send a message out to other countries to, for God's sake, forget about that story around 12 people out of 30,000 and give the money to these people as they need it.

That is why we have to admire the people of Ireland so much more for all the fundraising they are doing. It was funny that the UNRWA guy was so happy the Irish Government was not talking about how many trucks are getting in because lots of countries are always asking about that. Mr. Lazzarini said the main thing is that we are getting stuff in and we need more of it. They are in dire straits over there. Mr. Lazzarini was saying even the local police there were usually helping UNRWA workers get to out of reach places and now so many of them have been killed that they are stopping doing that as well. It seems to be getting worse on a daily basis.

I and the TDs and Senators in my party's parliamentary party wrote a letter to every Minister of the Government who is visiting abroad over St. Patrick's weekend asking them to raise it as an issue with every leader of every country they visit, not only in America, with the Taoiseach giving the shamrock.It is not just about going to London. We have to talk to everybody about this. It is really good we called out Ursula von der Leyen because she does not speak for us. It is really ironic because she is German and the Germans are selling weapons to Israel, which is just despicable. That is something else we have to call out here as well. We only have one voice each and we are small but we are mighty, as a country. We always have been. We have been calling out the Americans to call out Joe Biden. It is insane.

Netanyahu is a complete psychopath and he will not care. He even said today that he does not care about the International Court of Justice. The only way we will get the Israelis is through really strong sanctions. It is so important, what we are doing with Spain and getting other countries to vote as well. We have to get them. Obviously, all they care about is money and taking over the land because it does not seem like there is any other issue here. It is way beyond what happened on 7 October, bad and all as that was. That seems almost irrelevant now. The scale of the retribution is so far removed from any kind of revenge or the equality of getting them back an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth. It is way beyond that. It is deeply worrying when there is somebody of that kind of mental instability, just doing whatever he wants. He does not seem to care. The whole world is crying out.

It is still really important, and UNRWA has said this as well, to see people taking to the streets. It was interesting it said that we should not expel the Israeli ambassador but it is good that Irish people are standing on the streets saying, "We want them. We want the ambassador gone. We do not want to have anything to do with Israel on any level." I can see why we should hold on to the Israeli ambassador, and it is interesting UNRWA thinks we should, but it also thinks it is really good that Irish people are calling for her removal. It is interesting because one just do not know what the right thing to do is sometimes.

It is important as well that people have some hope in us as a Government, as an opposition and parties in government and that they do not think we do not care and that we could stop the war but we just could not be bothered. Sometimes I get messages from people telling me about children and mothers dying as if I do not care. We are all humans here. They need to know that we all care and care deeply, as Senator Higgins said. We are all trying to rack our brains as to what more we can do, as a small nation. As a small nation, we punch above our weight. There is always more we can do. We have to keep going, support this motion and support future things we can think of. The sanctions are a massive one. The only way to resolve it is diplomatically. I have serious concerns about that man's mental health. I do not know if he is insane or he is just so greedy and thinks he can wipe out the entire population of a country. We know, as Irish people, that the only way to resolve anything, because we did it in the North, is through diplomatic means. Unfortunately, Netanyahu will not meet Hamas so we need to create some other kind of a representation for the Palestinian people to go into negotiations with him. I am thankful for the motion and in particular to Senator Black.