He just appeared.

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I want to ring the alarm bell in respect of this legislation. Its introduction represents a sleight of hand whereby an apparently benign and innocuous Bill that is supposedly about supporting enterprise and industry is, in fact, a Bill that is being used to smuggle in something much more sinister. That is what is happening with the Bill. If I am right about that, it proves the Government absolutely cannot be trusted with Irish neutrality, cannot be trusted not to engage in war profiteering and, even worse, cannot be trusted not to actively be complicit with genocidal crimes being committed by the likes of the Israeli state. In making that fairly strong charge, I refer to section 8 of the Bill, which deletes the current requirement for companies engaged in defence and security technology to notify the Government and seek its approval to engage in such activity. That provision was not included in the draft scheme and nobody know it was there before it appeared, all of a sudden, in the Bill. To be clear on why that should worry us, I refer to the following in the briefing document from the Oireachtas Library and Research Service: "There is a notable implication of the proposed Section 8 of the Bill which, if enacted, would allow the enterprise development agencies [that is, State agencies] to engage with and support industries primarily associated with defence, without Government approval." We are debating this legislation in the same week that The Currency website published an article after 12 months of battling with the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment to get information about Government approvals for dual-use technology going to the Israeli military. Following that fight, we discover in Niall Sargent's article in The Currency this week, which people can read for themselves, that between 2020 and 2024, approximately €35 million worth of export licences to the Israeli military were granted by the Department because it had to get a licence and approval and so on. Most of that happened in 2024, the year of the genocide committed by the Israeli military. In 2020, the export licences to the IDF were worth €1.5 million. In 2021, they were worth €84,000. These are not meaningless sums. In 2022, they were worth €1.8 million and in 2023, the year the genocide began, they jumped to €12 million. In 2024, they jumped to €20 million. Why is it that The Currency has had such a hard time eliciting that information from the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment? It is of course because it is absolutely damning. The end user for dual-use technology is the Israeli military machine, engaged in a genocidal slaughter of the people of Gaza. In January of the year it is doing this - slaughtering tens of thousands of people in the most horrific way, levelling Gaza, some of its leaders, such as the deputy speaker of the Knesset, saying it is okay to kill everybody in Gaza and describing the Palestinians as human animals and everybody knowing what is going on - the International Court of Justice, ICJ, gave a preliminary ruling saying it believed there was a plausible case of genocide taking place. In that year, the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment approved a surge in exports to the Israeli military from this country. The Irish Government now wants to reduce the obligation on companies which might be engaged in the production of that kind of technology from having to seek Government authorisation. To me, that stinks to high heaven, particularly given the fact that this was not in the original draft scheme of the Bill. When the Minister spoke he said the proposed amendment allows the agencies to support financially and non-financially enterprises in the DSR sphere. DSR sounds totally innocuous. It was not even spelled out in the Minister’s speech, so we will just pass by it. What does it mean? Sure nobody is watching this debate and nobody is asking what that might mean. It was described in the most innocuous terms, although there was a giveaway line at the very end, which states "it does not affect existing Government policy on military neutrality." I wonder why the Government felt the need to say that. There is a connection between these two things. In the wider context, Ireland does about €3 billion worth of trade with the State of Israel and is one of its biggest trading partners in Europe against the background where Israel is in the dock for genocide and the most horrific crimes. There are arrest warrants out for Netanyahu and Gallant. Israel is in the dock for apartheid, the annexation of Palestinian territory, and ethnic cleansing. It is not stopping; it is escalating what it is doing. All of this happened in 2024 and then a Bill all of a sudden pops up with a section that was not included in the original draft scheme of the Bill, saying that from now on, the Industrial Development Agency, IDA, and Enterprise Ireland do not have to notify the Government if they are supporting companies doing business in this area. That absolutely stinks and it looks like a cover up of Government facilitation, although sort of hiding it, of industries profiteering from selling technology to people like the Israeli military and God knows who else. If it was just the Israeli military, which is committing the most heinous crimes, that would be bad enough. This is outrageous. Deputy Devlin was quoting Seán Lemass and waxing lyrical about him, his development policy and so on. It would be very rare that I would favourably quote Éamon de Valera but I am going to quote something he did favourably. It may be of interest to people in this House and the wider public to know that possibly the first ever instance of this State sanctioning another state for war crimes was initiated by Éamon de Valera in 1935 because of what, at the time, were viewed to be the genocidal crimes of the Italian regime in Abyssinia, today called Ethiopia. The Italians used, in one of the first instances of chemical warfare, mustard gas and other chemical agents on Abyssinian combatants and civilians in violation of the Geneva protocol; bombed Red Cross hospitals, tents and ambulances; massacred approximately 30,000 people in Addis Ababa; targeted clergy and intellectuals; burnt villages; slaughtered livestock; and destroyed thousands of churches. This happened in 1935 but it sounds familiar, does it not? It sounds very familiar. What did Éamon de Valera do? I am not a fan of Éamon de Valera but he instigated sanctions and they were passed by the Dáil. He enforced financial, commercial and other sanctions against Italy because as a country that had come into existence in a struggle against imperialism, Éamon de Valera and it seems the Oireachtas of the time knew it was a duty of a State born of a struggle against colonialism, ourselves victims of colonial genocidal policies which lead to things like the Great Hunger and all of the horrors colonialism visited on us, to impose sanctions. They were not worried about whether there was going to be economic blowback, and we were a poor country then. Éamon de Valera and the Oireachtas of the time said we had to act against this. It was deemed at the time to be genocidal, with Africans, by the way. Take note, Bertie Ahern. African people were being slaughtered by Europeans and fair play to Éamon de Valera and the Oireachtas of the time, they imposed sanctions. What is this Government doing? It is approving licences for a state engaged in genocidal slaughter. It cannot have been the case that the people who approved those licences were not aware at the time that it represented a massive surge to go from €1 million in one year, €85,000 in another year to €12 million and then €20 million. That is a massive increase in the exporting of that technology to the Israeli military. I debated with Deputy Barry Ward on the radio this morning and he was trying to make some sort of separation between technology that would go to the Israeli military that is complicit in the genocide, and technology that would go to the Israeli military that is not complicit in the genocide, in the midst of a genocide. Fair play to David McCullough who made the point that even they were contributing to the technology that helped them to pay the soldiers, they were complicit. If we were sending the Russian Government biros, it would considered be unacceptable complicity with what Russia is doing in Ukraine but we have a surge in exports from this country approved by the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment to the Israeli military while it is carrying out a genocide. That is absolutely shameful. In the same week, we have a Bill doing this. Fair play to Niall Sargent from The Currency for chasing this story. It should be read. He says it took 12 months of battling to get this information. Why did he have to battle to get it? Because it is shameful. That is why. The Government should explain this stuff. Here is the lesson I draw from it, as if we did not have enough evidence with the US military going through Shannon Airport, overflights potentially carrying weapons, etc., to the State of Israel and the refusal of the State to impose even the most minimal sanctions on the Israel. The Government simultaneously pays lip service to its solidarity with the Palestinian people and approves licences for the Israeli military while the Israeli military slaughters men, women and, most horrendously of all, children, babies and infants. The defence minister who is presiding over the Israeli military, the so-called IDF - in reality, the occupation force - actually said that Israel was going to starve people and deny them the means to exist.

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I am paraphrasing.

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Since the Ceann Comhairle mentioned that, it might be worth quoting them directly. For example, Yoav Gallant, the defence minister, that is, the minister in charge of the IDF, described the Palestinians in the context of the assault on Gaza as "human animals".

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Yes, that was in front of the ICJ. It was part of the evidence submitted to the ICJ.

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This is very much in the public domain. Members of the ruling party, Likud, made public statements calling for - I am now reading from Sadaka's document on the genocidal intent - a Nakba against the Palestinian people and talked about "erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the Earth". The Prime Minister, Netanyahu, referred to the Palestinians as "Amalek". This is a well known biblical reference which refers to the Hebrew Bible. The reference is to a certain part of the latter, which states: Now go attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys. That is what Netanyahu was referring to when he used the term "Amalek". There is a lot more evidence. I do not have it all in front of me. All has been submitted to the ICJ. This is what they were doing. They were saying they were going to do it and our Government approved a surge in licences for the military machine that was carrying out these atrocities against the Palestinian people. It is absolutely shameful. I will conclude on this. I have made the point, but I feel the need to sound the alarm bells about this. In the context of all that, we now have a Bill, not flagged in advance, with a section in it that seeks to reduce the obligations on State agencies to notify the Government when they are supporting companies that are engaged in the production of technology in this area. That is very bad.

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