Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after “That” and substitute the following:

- “Seanad Éireann resolves that the Air Navigation and Transport (Arms Embargo) Bill 2024 be read a second time on this day six months, to allow for a full examination of the legal and policy implications of its provisions to be undertaken.”

I thank the Minister for coming to the House. Everybody in this room appreciates the work of the Opposition and all the protest movements. I have been involved in the latter myself and started fundraising for Palestine more than 20 years ago. I want to be very clear that people in opposition do not care more than those in government. Sometimes it sounds like only the Opposition can care and that we on this side of the House do not care, have no morals and are not trying to do all we can. Every single week at parliamentary party meetings we discuss what more we can do. It was the Green Party and the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, that proposed the €20 million extra for UNRWA to make clear to other countries that we needed to do more.

I welcome this Bill. I know that we are not above the law so we have to look at what we can do in the quickest time possible. No matter what we do with this Bill it will not end the war, unfortunately. We know there are arms coming from all over the world, including Germany. I was involved in the anti-war movement in Shannon and organised the very first protest against it, so this is deep. This goes back a long way for me and I trust in the Minister doing all he can, along with the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste. As a Government, we have been very clear and strong, stronger than any other country. We need to be careful that we are not disingenuous in the accusations we make at the Government that has been the strongest in Europe against what is happening in Palestine, which goes beyond the comprehension of any of us today. We are all equally horrified and we are all working as hard as possible to do all we can to end the absolutely insane and barbaric behaviour of Netanyahu and his army.

I will leave it at that. I thank the Senators for their work on this. I really want to thank civil society. As I said to the Tánaiste, I have not seen the likes of this since we had Live Aid back in the 1980s. It is phenomenal and we have to keep going.