Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail)

I thank the Minister of State for his compassion and understanding, and his support for the motion. I thank my colleagues for participating, delivering and supporting this motion and I commend the Opposition as well. We are all on the same page. We are not on opposite sides. We want to do our very best as legislators and as a nation to support those who are displaced from Palestine, those who are bereft with grief and those still undergoing an incredible onslaught.

I want to address the point that Sinn Féin made. Yes, Fianna Fáil does have a very fine presidential candidate. His experience needs to be highlighted in relation to the UN mission in Chad because this speaks to his international credentials. That mission was established in response to atrocities and the refugee crisis coming from Darfur in Sudan. It is something I know about because my sister Noelle was a volunteer there with Médecins Sans Frontières for 12 months at the same time.

His role in leading the mission there was to protect civilians, facilitate humanitarian aid and support human rights. That all served to emphasise his credentials around leadership, global engagement and doing the right thing. How dare Sinn Féin try to use this platform to try to besmirch a good man that we are certainly proud to have as our candidate.

Senator Chris Andrew was also mentioned and we certainly send our support to him. We are very concerned by developments that have happened relating to the global flotilla. It is absolutely unacceptable. It is a clear breach of international law. The Tánaiste and the Taoiseach have taken this up with the EU High Representative, Kaja Kallas, and other counterparts in New York over the past few days. We wish Senator Andrews and all of those in the flotilla the very best. We want to see them all home safely.

The motion stands on its merits. We have had good engagement and a number of amendments have been made. With continued negotiation, we are happy to accept amendments Nos. 1 to 4, inclusive. We believe they will strengthen our motion. We are happy to accept them in the absolute spirit of collaboration and cooperation that we all need to have and show in relation to humanitarian crises such as this.

All sides of the House showed the same level of collaboration in relation to the motion that Senator McDowell had before us. I hope we can continue in the spirit collaboration and co-operation when it comes to issues such as this. I thank Members for putting their time and energy into this. I know they feel as strongly as we do. Other points were made that we have taken on board. The Minister has also taken the on board and will bring them back to the Tánaiste and the Cabinet. We should all hold our heads high in terms of what we are all doing both on the Government and Opposition benches to try to highlight what we can and to raise this everywhere we can with our counterparts in Europe and across the world. We used our time in Brussels yesterday to highlight this everywhere we could. I commend the motion, as amended with amendments Nos. 1 to 4, inclusive, to the House.