We must stop the game; it is as simple as that. The Irish Government must step in now. As the Social Democrats have outlined, all sporting events with Israel should be stopped. We should lead a campaign in Europe and the world to have Israel banned and boycotted, the exact same way it was done with the Russians. There are double standards here. The question we must ask ourselves is: where do these double standards come from? Is it Europe? Is it America? Is it big business? Is it the Israeli lobby? Or is it that this Government has no backbone to stand up and face it down? When you think back to Mary Manning and her ten colleagues of female workers, for three years, they went on strike against Dunnes Stores, South Africa and the apartheid state and the Irish Government did not have the guts to back them. It took 11 working class women to stand up to a regime that the Americans and British supported. We are back here again all of these years later and the same countries are telling Ireland what to do because there is no other explanation for why this is happening. You can look at what happened with Yugoslavia and how Bertie Ahern stepped in as the Fianna Fáil Taoiseach at the time and stopped the team from coming here. Why does Micheál Martin not stand up and say the Israeli team is not welcome here? The Irish basketball players had to play them over the past 12 months. Where was the Irish Government to support them? At least 75,000 people have died, including 22,000 children. When you think about it - 22,000 children - it is unimaginable. I cannot imagine it. I have two children and 22,000 children have died. We are allowing Israel to come over and play soccer? Fair play to RTÉ as it had the guts to say it will not go into a competition with Israel. Now, we need the Government to have the guts to do the same. I stand with the Irish players, all the athletes, fans and sporting organisations. It is not their job. It is the Government's job as the Irish Government. Where is it? Stand up, say no to genocide and say this game will not go ahead. To all the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael backbenchers who have come in here and cried crocodile tears for the past number of years, do not come in here and talk again unless they are willing to stand with this motion. This Government must stop the game.

Sentiment score: -0.08