Patricia Stephenson (Social Democrats)

In 2024, the Government made a commitment to bring 30 seriously ill children from Gaza to Ireland for lifesaving treatment. This was a scheme many of us welcomed. However, so far only 12 of those children have arrived here. What is happening to the other children? We have heard there is an issue with their visas. There seems to be some sort of spat between the Department of Health and the Department of justice. How is it that two of our own Departments cannot manage to process emergency visas for siblings of extremely ill children who are living in the catastrophe that is Gaza? Surely this is something that could be sorted out immediately. Do those little children know they are waiting to be evacuated? Do their parents or siblings know? Are they waiting and waiting while starving and in terror of bombs and snipers? We continuously hear from this Government that we need real actions and yet on the other hand the Government cannot sort out visas for these sick children. Particularly devastating is that there have been reports in The Irish Times that at least one of those children is now dead. That child died while waiting for our Government as it dithered to get visas sorted. I do not need to tell the Leader how angry I am and how angry people throughout this country are that critically ill children from Gaza who were promised sanctuary and urgent treatment in Ireland were failed. The promise has been broken in the most devastating way. We do not know how many others of those children have died but one is certainly too many. I am fed up with the platitudes, the notion that Ireland is doing better than everyone else and the taking of the moral high ground. What we have actually gotten from this Government is platitudes. The Tánaiste has said we need more than just words, but we cannot manage to process visas for critically ill children who are living in a war zone. We see this pattern: words over action, and process over principle. Children are dying not because we cannot help but we choose not to do so. We choose to delay processing their visas. I feel that, in this way, we are failing and this Government is failing the children of Gaza. There is no other government. There is no abstract Civil Service. It is this Government that has failed to do this.

We see this morning that Palestine GAA is still waiting for visas for children who were supposed to come here in the very near future. Their host families and the volunteers are ready. All of them have been left in limbo. We hear that the Department of justice has not provided any updates as the deadline looms for their visas. I urge the Tánaiste to take up this issue. He needs to make it his personal responsibility to get these visas sorted out both for the group from Palestine GAA and for the children on the sick list who are coming to Ireland for sanctuary. I ask the House that we appeal for this to be done before next week's recess.