Tom Clonan (Independent)

Bienvenue en Irlande to our French allies and great friends. Vive la France. It is great to celebrate France and Ireland; the Iiberté, égalité, fraternité, and now sororité, that exist between our countries. Today also marks the anniversary of the massacre at Srebrenica. I was proud to serve in former Yugoslavia with the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and to be part of the peacebuilding in the former Yugoslavia, in Banja Luka and Prijedor. This reminds me of the genocidal actions of the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces are a multiconfessional army. It has Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, Bedouin Arabs, Druze and Christians. Criticism of the Israel Defense Forces is not criticism of Jews or Judaism; it is criticism of war crimes. The femicide, infanticide and mass murder - the slaughter - of the innocent in Gaza are war crimes. Netanyahu is a war criminal. We remember that today. Hopefully, we will see some movement towards a ceasefire, and a permanent one at that.

I raise the issue of more than 100 members of the Air Corps in Baldonnel who have died prematurely of different types of cancers, such as pancreatic, bladder cancer, and other unexplained illnesses. That is 100 dead out of a workforce of 1,000. This is a serious issue. If we think that a couple of miles to the east, Dublin Airport has thousands of passenger jets landing and taking off every year, millions of passengers transiting through and aircraft maintenance and we do not have those fatalities, there is something amiss in Baldonnel.

This week, a 56-year-old flight sergeant passed away from pancreatic cancer. In the past three years, we have had two deaths from pancreatic cancer and one from bladder cancer. We speak repeatedly about threats to Ireland from the war in Ukraine and elsewhere but if a chemical weapon had killed one tenth of our Air Corps, we would rightly demand that no stone be left unturned to get to the bottom of this. That is what is happening to our loyal service personnel in Baldonnel and their families. To think if losing a father, husband or brother at the age of 56.

We plan to recruit hundreds or thousands of personnel and acquire new aircraft but we have to ensure we can guarantee their safety. I ask for a debate, possibly in the autumn term, with the Minister for Defence, Deputy Harris, on what measures can be put in place to protect our people.