I share the disappointment of my colleagues with what has been produced before us today. This Bill falls far short of what was promised and what is required, despite delays repeatedly over the years and despite Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael promising in the last election that this would be a priority. As far as I am concerned, the Government parties' election promises were nothing more than a box-ticking exercise. For years, campaigners in this House have tried to push forward this occupied territories Bill and today I think about the Opposition TDs who have been pushing for this for years, Senator Francis Black and the person who used to sit in the chair beside me, Catherine Connolly. I cannot help but feel disappointment when I look at this and the original occupied territories Bill has been diluted to the point now where it is ineffective. The Government's decision to exclude services from the Bill is devastating and it means that the Bill loses any sort of meaningful impact and accountability. There is no legal justification for this. The decision appears to be purely political rather than actual legal necessity. The Government is trying to pass this Bill as meaningful action, and is just living up to its pre-election promise and ticking the box to say it produced a document. Since October 2023, Israel has killed more than 70,000 people and 20,000 of them are children in Gaza. One out of every 33 people in Gaza has been killed. Let us think about those numbers. The equivalent of five TDs in this House, when it is filled up, have been taken out and killed. One child has been killed every hour 24 hours a day for two years. That is a shocking statistic, which is down to a regime that is out of control and Benjamin Netanyahu, who is a war criminal. Every time this happens, it is normalised because we do not say anything about it. This was an opportunity the Government had to have the courage that Spain and Slovenia had but it is a missed opportunity. History will dictate on this. History will say we had the opportunity to stand up and do the right thing but we failed. We did not fail; the Government failed.

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