Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise an issue that occurred in the past 24 hours. We heard how a former Member of this House, Lynn Boylan, who is now an MEP, was refused entry and deported when attempting to visit Israel as a part of an official EU delegation in an official capacity on an Irish diplomatic passport. Two Members of the European Parliament and their officials were denied entry to Israel and denied the right to perform their roles in terms of international observation and international diplomacy.

This points to a time when we are still seeing extraordinary breaches of human rights. These include 162 healthcare workers for whose release the UN has been calling, reports of mistreatment and torture, six children frozen overnight because shelter was not allowed to enter the Gaza Strip, a new massive expansion of settlements and the tanks that rolled through the West Bank very recently. These are all important. It is important that we look at them.The Taoiseach spoke yesterday about the international rules-based order and how important it is, but the international rules-based order and international law are important in the principle that they are applied everywhere and for everyone. Ireland has the opportunity to be the champions on international law and the international rules-based order by showing that we take breaches of those rules and laws very seriously and take actions such as the appropriate basic action of passing the full occupied territories Bill. That is just one piece.

Giving leadership in these ways is how Ireland shows courage. There is nothing in the triple lock that stops Ireland from providing leadership on international law and its implementation. There is nothing that stops us showing leadership when it comes to the areas I have spoken about on previous occasions, such as data and online regulation. We have seen the attempts to disrupt the German elections, for example. There is a reason people are giving out about regulation. It is because regulation has an impact. Finally-----