The Minister's speech really encapsulates the cynicism of the Government on the issue of Palestine. The written copies of her speech include, in two places, references to the start and end of media clips. It is the first time I have seen that. It encapsulates the Government's approach. One of the clips includes the Minister talking about all the good stuff the Government is going to do at a European level and how hopeful she is about the things happening at EU level. The clip ends with a statement that the Government cannot support this Bill in its current form. However, there is no need to worry: nobody should mistake opposition to this Bill for silence or indifference. I do not think the Government is going to be silent in any case. It is part of its approach that we will keep getting lots of words. Ministers have no problem giving us words. What the Government has a problem with is action, and any action at that. The Government is in a difficult political position. On the one hand are people like those in the Gallery and the tens of thousands who have come out again and again to protest for Palestine. That massive public support for Palestine is one side of it. On the other side is the Government's increasing integration into US imperialism, its connection with and reliance on US multinationals and, therefore, the massive pressure on it not to do anything to upset Donald Trump and US capitalism. The Government has tried to untie that Gordian knot by deciding on a strategy of rhetoric without action. It will call what is happening genocide, which is very good and very important, and it will condemn and speak out about it. In effect, however, it will refuse to do anything. That is why eight years have passed without any progress on Senator Black's occupied territories Bill. The Minister tells us she is committed to progressing the Bill. That is a joke and everyone knows it is a joke. She cannot stand there and ensure us the Bill will come through when she has devoted her energies to watering it down, slowing it down and, in my view, trying to block it. That is being done entirely against the wishes of the all-party foreign affairs committee, which has said it needs to be enacted quickly and to include both trade and services. It is being done against the vote of the Dáil. Last year, the motion we brought forward on the occupied territories Bill was passed unanimously by the House. The Dáil voted for the Bill to be enacted by last Christmas and to include provision for goods and services. The Minister has used her position not to progress the Bill but to delay it. The Government has supposedly been conducting an examination for two years into illegal flights through our airspace conveying weapons to be used by the Israel Defense Forces. I put down a parliamentary question about the progress of that examination every few months. It is apparently still ongoing and the Minister cannot tell me when it might end. The strategy of the Government is words without actions. Before us this evening is a proposal for meaningful action but the Minister says it would amount to boycott, divestment and sanctions on the State of Israel. To this I say, "Yes, that is precisely what we need". How can anyone say that a state that is committing genocide, a state that is built on apartheid, forcible ethnic cleansing and throwing people out of their land, should not be boycotted, divested from and sanctioned? I return to a point Deputy Boyd Barrett made. This strategy of words without actions is getting the Government into a very significant legal problem. It has a problem because it chose to use a particular, strong word, which we pushed it for a long time to use and which we welcomed. I refer to the Government's formal statement that Israel is committing genocide. The Taoiseach first formally stated that in May 2025. The Minister cannot say she does not know Israel is committing genocide, because the Government has declared that Israel is committing genocide. We do not live in a world in which, legally, noticing that someone is committing genocide does not mean anything. It is meant to mean something and the Government is meant to do something about it. The International Court of Justice in the Bosnian genocide case stated, "A State's obligation to prevent, and the corresponding duty to act [not just to say words but to act], arise at the instant that the State learns of, or should normally have learned of, the existence of a serious risk that genocide will be committed." We were well beyond that point by May 2025 because the Government had stated not just that it suspected genocide was happening or may be happening but that genocide was happening. Article I of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide states, "[G]enocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law, which they [states that are party to the convention, which includes Ireland] undertake to prevent and to punish." Article V states, "The Contracting Parties undertake to enact, in accordance with their respective Constitutions, the necessary legislation to give effect to the provisions of the present Convention." Why did the State recognise genocide and do precisely nothing to prevent and punish that crime? Worse than that, it acted to delay and vote against legislation designed to prevent and punish that crime. If the Minister knows Israel is committing genocide and she opposes Bills that are proposed to try to pressure on Israel to stop the genocide that is ongoing, what does that make her and the other members of the Government? It makes them complicit in genocide. A former Minister, Paschal Donohoe, was deeply offended by anyone saying that. He thought it was a very bad thing to say someone is complicit in genocide, but how else does the Government want it to be spun? If Ministers know a genocide is happening but are against taking action to try to stop it, then what else are they other than complicit? The other argument the Government makes is that it is, in effect, illegal for us to act unilaterally against Israel and that every action must be taken collectively by the EU. That is simply not true. Last October, the Parliament of the Spanish state passed into law a total arms embargo against Israel. It permanently banned the sale to Israel of all weapons, military equipment and, crucially, dual-use technology in response to the genocide in Gaza. That law formalises a de facto ban that had been in operation since Israel's genocidal war against the Palestinian people began in October 2023. We can contrast that with the position of the Government and all its fine words. Yesterday, The Currency website revealed that the Department of enterprise approved €20 million in dual-use exports, that is, exports that could be used for military purposes, not just to Israel but specifically to the IDF and the Israeli Ministry of Defense. This was happening in 2024 at the height of Israel's genocidal slaughter of the Palestinians. That was revealed in heavily redacted freedom of information documents that cover up what the dual-use items were for. I heard Deputy Barry Ward on the radio earlier trying to suggest that this was perhaps some sort of HR software for the IDF. All the redactions mean we have no idea whether that is accurate. Perhaps the Minister can tell us what the goods were and which companies were exporting them to the IDF. Even if we grant that Deputy Ward is correct that this was HR software and not any product that would be used in weaponry and so on, why would the IDF be buying extra HR software during the slaughter of Palestinians in 2024? Maybe it was because it needed to expand its payroll because it was paying many more soldiers to shoot innocent children in the head, blow up whole families in apartment blocks, bomb hospitals and ambulances in double-tap attacks, leave babies to die in ICUs, and rape and torture political prisoners. That is what the IDF does. Any goods being sent to the IDF are used for those purposes. That is what it was doing on a daily basis in 2024 and it is still what it is doing today despite the so-called ceasefire. The FOI documents show a belated development of conscience in 2025, with the start of the blocking of dual-use exports to the IDF. That inexcusable hesitation in taking action to prevent genocide as it was happening in front of our eyes shows we cannot trust the Government to comply with complicated trade rules and regulations. We need to take away all discretion from this cowardly, double-speaking Government and put into law a clear ban on all trade with Israel, just like the Government was forced to do when it banned trade with apartheid South Africa. There can be no more room for equivocation or delay. I have a question for the Minister. The Government allowed a conscience vote yesterday on the Social Democrats' Bill on abortion rights. Why can it not allow a conscience vote on the question of genocide? Of all the issues of conscience in the world, surely it should allow its own backbench TDs to decide whether they want to do something to stop this genocide or to go along with the Government's complicity in genocide. Surely they should be allowed that choice. I ask Government TDs and those who support the Government not to hide behind any of the misleading waffle Ministers like to use about legal technicalities and so on but instead to examine their conscience. They know there is a genocide happening. Do they think we should be trading with this genocidal apartheid state or that it is time for Ireland to do whatever we can to try to stop it?

Sentiment score: -0.09