I welcome, on behalf of Solidarity, this Bill. It is the first Bill to advocate for sanctions against Israel. What has happened to Palestine and what is now happening to Lebanon and other countries Israel is attacking is an absolute shame on the EU and world leaders. What an indictment of the EU that, almost three years into a horrific genocide, not only does it not sanction Israel, it continues to give Israel a favoured trade status. What an indictment of capitalism generally that household name companies we all know and were brought up on are directly complicit in the killing and genocide of the Palestinian people. I always wondered as a child when I read about Nazi Germany how Braun and all these companies managed to operate, but I am seeing it now writ large. People say, "What would you do if you were in Nazi Germany?" It is whatever you are doing right now - that is the answer. What the Minister is doing on behalf of the Irish Government is absolutely nothing for the Palestinian people. I take issue with stating it is just words - there are funds as well. Every time we stand up here and ask the Taoiseach or the Minister, or whoever is the foreign affairs Minister, about our stance and our inaction for Palestine, we get a mantra of all the different funds the Government is delivering. They would not need the funds if the genocide was not happening. It is just pathetic. It is guilt money at this point. The Minister says she thinks action at EU level is best, so can we not do anything until we get overall action by the EU? If that is what she is saying, it is extremely unlikely that will ever happen because of big powers like Germany, France, Italy and other countries who will veto that. It is a recipe for inaction. There is nothing stopping the Government acting alone. Slovenia and Spain, the countries Ireland was working with to get the resolution recently, have brought in similar occupied territories legislation. What is so special about Ireland? I think we all know what is special about Ireland. Ireland is now the second biggest trader with Israel. The US is number one, China is number three and Ireland is number two. What is the reason for that? Intel - one major company that the IDA bent over backwards to get into this country in the 1990s. The Government does not want to upset Intel; that is why it is not taking on this Bill. Some €3 billion of the €3.2 billion seem to be directly related to the electronic components, circuits and assemblies for the Intel operation with Israel - another company directly complicit in the genocide. The Government has a very difficult job because it has to walk a tightrope of publicly supporting Palestine but taking absolutely no action to upset the multinational companies it is in thrall to. As was said earlier, Ireland's only action is the Eurovision, which was taken by RTÉ and not by the Government, by the way. Even a football match - get a grip here. A football match is not at all important. Even then the Government does not have the moral backbone to say it should not happen. Three thousand fans will come here from Israel, a team directly complicit and involved with the IDF. The women's team wear IDF jerseys for publicity stunts - absolutely dripping in blood, racism against Arabs and violence and they have breached all the rules of UEFA and FIFA but that is fine, business as usual. And the Minister tells us she cares about the genocide. Bertie Ahern has been in the news this week for despicable racism. He has a rotten record and has been named in tribunals. Is it not gas that we are citing Bertie Ahern for taking action to prevent the Yugoslav team coming here during the Balkan wars in the 1990s? Because the Serbs attacked the Bosnians, he did not issue visas. Charlie Haughey was a similar character. He told the IRFU the game was up, literally, in terms of going to apartheid South Africa. The political leadership now has not even got the gumption to do that; they represent nothing when you break it down. We have to cite these people, not because they are good, but because the present leadership is so bad. The fact Ireland looks good internationally is because the rest are so rotten. I want to mention the occupied territories Bill. I spoke on this already. It must be exhausting for the Minister to come up with all these reasons it cannot be passed, especially since Slovenia and Spain have done it. She said initially it was her political priority, then had to walk it back. In February, she said it should be okay. Here we are in May and we all know it will not be passed before the summer and we will go into another delaying tactic. It must be exhausting for her. On Shannon and flights - and this is since the Minister came into the role - there was a 56% surge in US and military overflights last month as the US launched its attacks on Iraq.

Sentiment score: -0.09

Iran, sorry. Iraq could be next; anyone could be next. The Minister sees no connection between the two events, of course. Academic links have been mentioned. I absolutely agree. The Minister came out and criticised people for trying to break academic links; however, they are not academic links. Tecnium is a laboratory for weapons for the Israeli genocide in the aerospace and engineering arena. The Minister said she does not believe in BDS and clearly she does not. How else does she propose Israel is to be isolated? She certainly supported it in the case of Russia. People from the Palestine Solidarity Movement are in the Gallery. Ordinary people from all around the country, all genders, all nationalities, all races, all generations. It has been the most powerful and inspiring movement in the world over the past three years because it is an antidote to the rotten racism, militarism and hate that is being peddled. If it did not exist, the Palestinian people would be in an even worse situation than they are now. Unfortunately, it has not stopped the genocide. We have lacked workers' action to do that. We have two focal points now. The national march on Sunday should be huge. I appeal to everybody to attend it. We also have the potential to shut down the Ireland-Israel football match in October.

Sentiment score: -0.05

Just to make it clear, there are actually two matches. Many of us are saying "Stop the game" but it should be "Stop the games". I got an email back from Brian Kerr when I contacted him in relation to this and he made the point, which a lot of us are not emphasising, that we should not be playing Israel anywhere. We should not have anything to do with them. How can the Minister not see that? That was one solitary thing she could have done. We have to rely yet again on the ordinary people of this country to mobilise and stop that match. If it is not stopped beforehand, we have to gather and prevent it happening that day. I am confident we can do that because there are public meetings taking place around the country. We have launched a campaign which many people have signed up to - sports personalities, political figures and so on. Momentum is building around that. Every ordinary person in the country knows this should not happen. It is just not right. It is a really poor reflection on the sports Minister and the Taoiseach who pushed the team to go ahead with that. Many of them are people of colour, from racialised communities and so on. I am sure they do not want to but the Government is nearly putting them in that situation. I appeal to the team to take a stand. It will have the support, I believe, of the vast majority of people in this country. This Bill should be supported and should be campaigned for in the next week. I agree with Deputy Boyd Barrett that there should be a free vote. The Government allowed a free vote on women's rights and bodily autonomy last night in here and it should allow it on this as well.

Sentiment score: 0.10