Shane Curley (Fianna Fail)

It is important to acknowledge that what happened on 7 October 2023 was a complete atrocity. What has been done since then by the IDF has quite rightly been designated as a genocide. I have a real issue with the fact that many prescribed terrorist groups around the world quite easily achieve the status of being designated a terrorist group when we see what the IDF is doing. That needs to be acknowledger in this Chamber. The images coming out of Gaza and what is happening there trouble me. It is extremely emotive. I visited the University of Galway last week and had a really long conversation with a Palestinian girl who signed up to the youth wing of my party. It was really tough. We have a huge amount of work to do as a nation to try to help the people of Gaza in the aftermath of this. Our biggest role will be when the generations of trauma come out of it.

I want to pick up on something Senator McCormack said. She said the flotilla should not be doing the work; we should be. It is something we need to discuss. My granduncle was a proud servant in the navy. I am not sure of the sense of sending our navy over there with the equipment they have. It is something we need to be mature about when we are having these conversations. How do our Defence Forces create humanitarian corridors in Gaza without changing the triple lock? I ask that this conversation takes place properly. When we are discussing the Gaza issue, we need to have more mature conversations. It is completely atrocious. What the IDF is doing is genocide. Everybody agrees on that, but there needs to be a more mature conversation when we are discussing some of the details in this Chamber.