Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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388. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade his views on the decision to reduce electricity supply to the Gaza strip, which OCHA has warned will have disastrous consequences for the welfare of Gaza's residents; if he has raised this issue; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34893/17]

Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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405. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if his attention has been drawn to a recent UN report (details supplied) which shows that living conditions for two million persons in the Palestinian enclave are deteriorating further and faster than the prediction made in 2012 that Gaza would become unliveable by 2020; and the steps he will take to raise this both with the Israeli authorities and at EU level. [35637/17]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 388 and 405 together.

I deeply regret the decision by the Palestinian Authority and Israel to reduce the supply of electricity to Gaza, as a result of the dispute between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas over payment for the electricity supplied. While no government can be expected to tolerate indefinitely the situation arising as a result of Hamas' withholding of payment for the power supplied, it is the ordinary people of Gaza who are caught in the middle of this dispute, and are suffering the consequences.

Fortunately the resumption of operation by the Gaza power plant has largely compensated for the reduction in supply from Israel, but this resumption may not be sustained, and in any case only maintains the overall supply at the already wholly inadequate level provided in the first half of this year.

I raised the problems of Gaza with almost every official interlocutor I met on my recent visit, Israeli and Palestinian leaders and UN agencies, and others. This included both the electricity issue and the broader restrictions and deteriorating conditions which made Gaza a clear crisis point even before this latest problem. I urged all sides to see that a radical rethink of their positions was urgently needed, to avert a disaster in both humanitarian and political terms.