Alison Comyn (Fianna Fail)

I wholeheartedly support everything my colleague Senator O'Loughlin has said and, I have no doubt, what will be said today in the House by Members of all parties and none. I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House. Earlier, I spoke about this matter. I am encouraged that this is being taken very seriously by everybody. What has happened over the past 24 hours is atrocious in the absolute sense of the word. All of the things that have happened in the past couple of years have been atrocities during a genocide.

Our thoughts are really with the 14 Irish citizens. As I mentioned this morning, they include my colleague Senator Chris Andrews and, of course, Independent TD Barry Heneghan. They are a small part of what is a huge effort to try to bring humanitarian aid to people who are in dire need of it. I have not been a politician for very long. I was a journalist before then, so it is not as though I am unaware of what has been happening over the years. I was a massive history buff in school. We looked at our history books and thought this kind of thing could never possibly happen again, but here we are still talking about it. Action has got to be taken. We had citizens trying to bring comfort and supplies to those in need of them and they have been stopped. I hope we have a safe return for everybody on the flotilla and that there will be an end very soon so we can bring whatever aid can be brought and we can bring comfort to these people.

I will support any assistance that will stop the suffering of the people in Palestine and right across the Middle East. There have been 66,000 deaths in Palestine and almost 170,000 people wounded. Let us not forget the innocent Israelis also, with 1,200 deaths and more than 6,000 wounded. There are no winners in this. We must make whatever effort we can to end the suffering.