Alice-Mary Higgins
National University of Ireland · Independent · Ireland
“We are signing up to be customers of liquefied natural gas - potentially fracked gas, potentially coming from a country that is busily fighting against climate action and trying to fast-track our route to destruction. We will be doing that every year in the budget and every day in the terminal.”
“We are not getting solid measures on those safeguards. The other safeguards we have, which are our planning laws and climate laws, are being either fast-tracked or suspended. We are suspending the existing safeguards and are not putting hard safeguards into this Bill, and we are being asked to go on faith.”
“Nonetheless, I have some practical questions. We need a little more on what the emergency is because it is not sufficient to say we will deal with it then. The emergency is the ground on which the Minister of State is asking for the normal planning process and the climate Act to be suspended. We need to know what the emergency is.”
“It should happen only after all relevant market-based measures have been implemented. Those market measures should include the demand-reduction strategies that are eligible under N-1, including demand reduction by large energy users, and should have been implemented, exhausted and proven insufficient.”
“Sure there is detail in it but the key issue is that what he is asking of the Oireachtas, which is to agree to it being built, is on the argument of there being an emergency. It should be very clear what the emergency is. I mentioned previously that the committee said our N-1 obligations could be met through demand management.”
“It comes from real places with real communities that are immediately and terribly impacted by fracking, as well as having an impact on the atmosphere that surrounds our beautiful planet, which we are destroying. As the Minister of State said, it impacts not just on business but on the liveability of large portions of this planet.”
The complete record
Every one of 1,900 lines we hold for Alice-Mary Higgins, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 1 of 38.
“I move amendment No. 18: In page 22, between lines 3 and 4, to insert the following: “(6) In identifying, describing, and assessing the likely significant effects of the designated development on the environment, the Environmental Impact Assessment Report in section 22 and subsequent assessment shall include an evaluation of— (a) the vulnerability of the development to risks of major accidents or disasters relevant to the project, and (b) the direct and indirect, impacts of the development on human health, safety, and well-being of adjacent communities.””
“States can look for an exemption in the common rules around third party access, saying they explicitly wish to ensure there will not be third party access to this resource. Will the Minister of State apply to the European Commission for an exemption to Directive 2009/73/EC of the European Parliament concerning the common rules and repealing directive and seek an exemption to the principle of third party access for this facility?”
“I move amendment No. 17: In page 14, between lines 23 and 24, to insert the following: “ Application for exemption to the principal of third-party access 12. The Minister shall, before approval of a designated development, apply to the European Commission for an exemption to Directive 2009/73/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009, concerning common rules for the internal market in natural gas and repealing Directive 2003/55/EC1, Article 36(9), providing an exemption to the principal of third-party access.”. This is refers to a very important danger that has been highlighted to me, which is the danger of third parties seeking the right to access. This is something that can and has been done in other instances in the European Union.”
“(3) The Minister shall not direct, permit, or authorise any send-out of gas from the designated development unless the Commission for Regulation of Utilities has formally certified to the Minister that— (a) a gas supply emergency exists that cannot be resolved by standard network balancing, and (b) all Large Energy Users operating within the State have been curtailed to mandatory, pre-defined minimum operational electricity and natural gas consumption thresholds. (4) For the purposes of this section, the pre-defined minimum thresholds shall be prescribed by the Commission for Regulation of Utilities.”.”
“I move amendment No. 15: In page 11, between lines 26 and 27, to insert the following: “ Ownership and Operation 7. (1) The designated strategic gas reserve, including any terminal, infrastructure, or facility developed under this Act, shall remain exclusively in public ownership and under State control and shall not be transferred or outsourced, in whole or in part, to any private commercial entity. (2) The facility shall be operated solely by a designated public body for emergency energy security purposes and shall not be utilised for commercial trading of gas supplies by any private enterprise.”
“I move amendment No. 12: In page 11, to delete line 10 and substitute the following: “(e) the importation and offloading of LNG to the FSRU, where such LNG has been produced by a country which is a party to the Paris Agreement 2015, has not been produced by means of hydraulic fracturing;”.”
“We have similar amendments in respect of a review. We are looking for a review every five years, which is even more reasonable. However, it is also not just looking at the continued necessity as regard threat or risk but also at what the alternatives may be. If we are in a position where battery and renewables can meet that risk at that point, then we should not be going for this as a preferred option. Again, we are seeking extra components to the review.”
“There are characteristics commonly used in environmental impact assessment reports and the decision was made in the drafting of this Bill to not include those established areas of impact assessment, such as the risk of major accidents and disasters and the direct and indirect impacts of the development on human health, safety and the well-being of adjacent communities. Why would we have an environmental impact assessment that does not include these two factors, specifically when the committee, as well as local communities who spoke to the committee, called for those to be included?”
“Amendment No. 18 seeks to ensure that if there are going to be environmental impact assessments, they will include the evaluations of the vulnerability of the development to risks of major accidents or disasters relevant to the project and the direct or indirect impacts of the development on human health, safety and the well-being of the adjacent communities. That is not me making up some language. That was a recommendation of the committee and those are factors within environmental impact assessment reports.”
“It will lead to a number of subsequent poor decisions within the construction, planning and operation of the facility. There are so many points at which this project should be checked against the climate Act - not just in the general concept of it but in its operation and construction. Instead of doing that, instead of checking it repeatedly against the climate change Act, at each decision point we are suspending it altogether.”
“The new section 30 would keep the application of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act. We do not have time to go through it because of the guillotine, unfortunately, but amendment No. 28 sets out what it means to be thinking about the sectoral emissions ceilings and the carbon budgets when it comes to the management of gas. We spell out all the many ways that what is going to happen here is likely to be extremely relevant for the purposes of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act. There are so many ways in which the Act is relevant to what is being proposed and it is being disapplied. As I say, because of the time limitations I cannot go through the list of ways but this is really dangerous. It is not just symbolically bad. In practical terms, it is a very poor decision.”
“This amendment removes section 33. As I said, section 33 is yet another disapplication of the climate Act. This is becoming a pattern. The Government seems to acknowledge that the climate Act exists but thinks it does not apply to anything it wants to do. That is not how it works. It is not how climate works. It is not how climate science works. Emissions do not stop hitting the atmosphere because the Government has a really good reason why it wants to do something. That is not how it works. It is damaging the credibility of the Government, a Government that is going to be representing Europe at the Conference of the Parties, COP, in Turkey later this year, if it says that we have a climate and development Act but disapplies it all the time. This amendment would replace section 30.”
“If it is going to be such a rare usage, the minimum the Minister of State should be able to tell us is it will not be hydraulic fractured gas and will not come from countries not party to the Paris Agreement. That last is currently the United States, but who knows in the future who else might be relevant there? I think that is a minimum. I hope the Minister of State will accept these amendments.”
“We are signing up to be customers of liquefied natural gas - potentially fracked gas, potentially coming from a country that is busily fighting against climate action and trying to fast-track our route to destruction. We will be doing that every year in the budget and every day in the terminal. Every two months, we will get another shipment in. We will actively be part of it. That is not a hypothetical; that is the reality of building this terminal. If it is not going to be used, then let us find our gas elsewhere. If it is going to be such a rare circumstance, then let us not take liquefied natural gas that comes from hydraulic fracturing and let us not import it from a country that is busy destroying climate targets. Let us not give support to the fossil fuel industry, which lobbies nationally and internationally against climate action.”
“It comes from real places with real communities that are immediately and terribly impacted by fracking, as well as having an impact on the atmosphere that surrounds our beautiful planet, which we are destroying. As the Minister of State said, it impacts not just on business but on the liveability of large portions of this planet. This is as real as it gets. The idea we would be part of that in terms of fracking is hideous, as is the idea we would take up to 58% of it from a country that is working against climate targets and where we know the drilling part of the fracking will not be measured. This is not a one-off. We will not only buy LNG if it is an emergency. Rather, we will buy and use it every day this terminal is in existence. Every two months, because of the venting mechanism, we will be refilling it.”
“It is a minimum and should be in this law - the Minister of State should accept this amendment - to say it is bad enough that we suspend our own climate Act in respect of this terminal. We have to suspend the climate Act because there will not be a climate justification. The narrative we have heard is about transition and renewables. If that stood up, the Minister of State would be able to work within the climate Act because that logic could be checked against that. If it really was a transition, the Minister of State would not have to suspend the climate Act. It is one thing to suspend our climate Act, but it is another to support and facilitate the efforts to torpedo global climate action that are happening in the United States. We should not import fracked gas because it is immoral.”
“The majority of the European Union's imported liquefied natural gas, approximately 58%, comes from the United States, a country that is not party to the Paris Agreement, which has abandoned the idea of global and national climate targets and whose President is paying energy companies to stop building renewable energy. They are so actively hostile to renewable energy and so deeply committed to "Drill, baby, drill". That is what is happening in the United States right now. It is not just not party to the Paris Agreement, but is actively working against climate action. It has abandoned the concept of common but differentiated responsibilities that is core to the Paris Agreement and to the global movement for climate justice and against climate breakdown.”
“It is the cracking of earth deep down to release emissions that might otherwise never see the surface. We said it was wrong, so we should not then say it is okay to buy it from other places. I support amendment No. 3 and the other amendments relating to this, but I also have my own amendment. It is amendment No. 12, which states we should limit importation of liquefied natural gas from any country not party to the Paris Agreement, as well as limiting any LNG produced by hydraulic fracturing. Amendment No. 13 focuses solely on the importation of LNG obtained through hydraulic fracturing. There are amendments tackling the wider issue of fracking and saying fuels obtained through it should not be part of the Bill, but I want to specifically talk about importation.”
“As I said, credit is due to former Deputy ,Tony McLoughlin as well as to former Deputy, Thomas Pringle, of course, who brought in the Fossil Fuel Divestment Bill. These were measures, loudly trumpeted by the Government, that came from backbenchers, both on the Government and Opposition sides. We made a decision collectively as a Parliament to say that fracking was wrong and that we did not want fracking happening in Ireland, and it was for very good reason. It was for environmental reasons. It was for safety reasons. It was for all of the climate reasons. It was very real. The idea is a striking and unacceptable hypocrisy. We agreed fracked gas was wrong because the fracking of gas is this incredibly intensive process that produces incredibly dirty and dangerous fuel in an incredibly dirty and dangerous way.”
“We are keeping digging and we are buying what people who keep digging are producing. That is the problem. I accept that we are here to discuss it but, frankly, it is not enough to have the Minister of State’s good faith in respect of what he interprets an emergency as being. We have to vote on what is in front of us, and what is in front of us is ambiguous and dangerous.”
“We are not getting solid measures on those safeguards. The other safeguards we have, which are our planning laws and climate laws, are being either fast-tracked or suspended. We are suspending the existing safeguards and are not putting hard safeguards into this Bill, and we are being asked to go on faith. We have seen the dilution in the position in this regard and the deterioration of the commitment in being against this type of hideous accelerant of the climate crisis. This is one of the dirtiest fuels. It involves the production of methane, which is an accelerant. As the Minister of State rightly said, and I know he understands, we are doing this at a time when there is no global space in the atmosphere for it. Anything extra should be happening in developing countries that have been hit by this climate crisis and have not caused it.”
“Simply saying "Our policy is" or "I envisage it is this" is not the same as having a definition of "emergency" in the Bill. We do not know what this Government or a future government might decide is its version of an emergency. I appreciate that the Minister of State speaks in good faith about what he thinks it will be, but unless it is in the Bill, that can change, much like the Government that went around the world selling green bonds and saying it was against fracking, fracking is horrendous and came from a Government backbencher at the time. Now, we are suddenly okay with it having an input. Those things change. That is why the law needs to be got right. We are not getting hard measures to copper-fasten the ownership and operation as being public and copper-fasten a definition of emergency.”
“Again, with absolute respect, the issue is that the Minister of State is giving us his understanding but that is not the same as having it in legislation. The position taken by the then Minister, Eamon Ryan, and some others was deeply wrong and regrettable. They relied on a policy statement, rather than bringing in the prohibition that should and could have been brought in on public policy grounds under EU law. Ireland would have had very strong grounds, in particular given our national ban on fracking and hydraulic fracking. When we should have had a hard legal measure we had a policy position. We saw that as soon as Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil were in government together and the Green Party was gone that policy changed. It flipped.”
“What are the policy measures that are going to be activated in terms of demand reduction and other measures before this last tier gets used? What measures are there in terms of ensuring that this is only under public ownership and only under public operation, as the committee has called for?”
“It says that it cannot be transferred to private commercial entities; it must be a designated public body; the Minister would not direct, permit or authorise any send-out of the gas unless the CRU has formally certified that a gas supply emergency exists that cannot be resolved by any other balancing; and all large energy users operating within the State have been curtailed. This is another one. I see now why it is grouped. It is because part of it is on the public ownership and the other part is that there is curtailment, if necessary, of large energy users in terms of minimum operation of electricity and natural gas consensual process. The Minister of State might touch on that. Will he talk to the emergency? What comes first in terms of demand reduction? That is not operational. That is policy.”
“We were selling bonds whereby Ireland was the future and getting into leading world anti-fossil fuel and climate change conferences yet we have this happening now. The committee is very clear on this. All provisions in the Bill that allow for development or operation by commercial entities must be explicitly limited to public bodies. The committee looked for this to be explicitly limited, both the development and operation, to the public bodies. That was a very clear message from the committee. Our amendment does the same thing.”
“15 is also grouped with this amendment and this is a core issue in respect of ownership and operation. In the amendment, Senators Harmon, Cosgrove and Noonan and I are asking that the designated strategic gas reserve would remain exclusively in public ownership and under State control and would not be transferred or outsourced in whole or in part to any private commercial entity. That is vital. It is part of the core rationale as to why all of this special waiving and fast-tracking is being requested and the reversal of so much previous Government policy. I remember a moment, and I am sure the Minister of State does, when Ireland was going around the world selling green bonds on the back of our anti-fracking legislation and our fossil fuel divestment laws.”
“Nonetheless, I have some practical questions. We need a little more on what the emergency is because it is not sufficient to say we will deal with it then. The emergency is the ground on which the Minister of State is asking for the normal planning process and the climate Act to be suspended. We need to know what the emergency is. If it is the case that there is an exit plan by 2040, it should answer the amendment tabled by Sinn Féin. The groupings are a little bit strange because I have also tabled a sunset clause amendment, which will be dealt with later and has not been grouped with Sinn Féin's sunset clause amendment. If this is about a transition and getting the house in order, there should be a sunset clause. We need a sunset clause. If it is going to be temporary, then temporary needs to be quantified in the Bill. Amendment No.”
“Sure there is detail in it but the key issue is that what he is asking of the Oireachtas, which is to agree to it being built, is on the argument of there being an emergency. It should be very clear what the emergency is. I mentioned previously that the committee said our N-1 obligations could be met through demand management. It agreed there was one scenario, an incident relating to the interconnectors, but noted it would do little to insulate Ireland from more generalised risk to energy security and, in fact, what the Government should be doing is accelerating onshore, decarbonisation and secondary fuels and fast tracking other interconnectors and all of the rest that the Minister of State has described. The problem is that a lot of our renewable energy is being immediately absorbed by the increase in usage.”
“We put measures into our planning and development Acts that allow for a fast-track planning process not just for this LNG structure but any LNG structure. It is a fast-track planning process so it goes straight to An Coimisiún Pleanála. A lot is being asked and saying we will discuss what happens with it later is not really on. If the Minister of State is asking for so much to be set aside, and so many new risks to be taken on, he cannot say we will decide how we do it later. A recommendation of the committee and of many of the experts we heard from is that there should be a single Bill rather than seeking permission to build it and then talking about what we do with it. This is not good practice. The Minister of State cannot say we do not want to discuss whether there will be an emergency.”
“The Government wants permission to build it and to suspend the climate Act so it does not apply and get it built. This is important because it should be borne in mind that building this terminal is not just about this terminal, as it will also open the door to commercial, which I will come to in a moment. It is reversing years of Government policy whereby we had the fossil fuel divestment Bill and the ban on fracking, because this will include fracked gas. There was also, of course, the policy prohibiting LNG which we had. It was not law and should have been law. The then Minister, Eamon Ryan, should have made it to law and it was wrong that it was only policy. We are reversing all of these policies that have helped to keep commercial LNG at bay.”
“Amendment No. 15 actually tackles a separate issue. I do not know whether I want to let the Minister of State contribute on the emergency aspect now and then come back in on amendment No. 15, because it deals with a quite different topic, namely ownership and operation. I could refer to both now.”
“It should happen only after all relevant market-based measures have been implemented. Those market measures should include the demand-reduction strategies that are eligible under N-1, including demand reduction by large energy users, and should have been implemented, exhausted and proven insufficient. We are in a situation where only non-market-based measures can be introduced to safeguard gas supplies. This does not include localised constraints or routine seasonal increases in demand where physical supply remains available. That is amendment No. 1. Amendments Nos. 4, 2 and 8 are Sinn Féin amendments and I will leave it to its members to speak to the specifics. They tackle the same core issue. The key question is that of what is going to constitute an emergency, and the slippage in what is used in defining an emergency.”
“Are we going to say that, because one hypothetical scenario we used to justify the €1 billion expenditure is not occurring, we should use the reserve for other emergencies, such as a bad day or a day when all of the gazillion large energy users we have added to the grid want to keep going and we also have a heatwave or cold day? What is going to count as an emergency? I am worried that the scenario in which the provision is actually relevant is so narrow. The gas would literally be vented into the air. We would not and should not be using it in the system, but it would add to our emissions every two months. I worry that a narrative will emerge that we should use it for some other emergencies. Amendment No. 1 makes it very clear that what is proposed should be the last resort.”
“The problem with that is an LNG terminal does not deliver six months of supply because the gas has to be vented and replaced every two months. Even if we had an LNG terminal, at an absolute maximum, if an event were to happen on the day after a new supply came in, there would be two months' supply available. Otherwise, you are talking about ships bringing fuel in to replenish the reserve rather than ships being brought in with fuel for an emergency. I just want to be clear that doing this is not even great in an emergency scenario. Here is the problem. When we were talking about this at a meeting of the committee, only one emergency scenario was identified in which this could actually be relevant. "Emergency" in the Bill could mean anything. There is no definition. We do not know what is meant by "emergency".”
“On the emergency scenario, while giving credit to an emergency, if one were to arise, it is still not a great solution because it does not give us six months' supply. We were told we needed to do this because of the N-1 standard. What was unequivocally dealt with in the committee's hearing, and it is in the committee's report, is that the N-1 standard - can demand be met on an individual day? - can be met by demand-management measures, on the day. We can meet the European standard using demand-management measures. The committee was very clear on that. It is not the European N-1 standard making us do that. That angle was put to bed. What we were left with was this one hypothetical scenario of a damaged interconnector, and the idea that we might need six months of supply.”
“That is ludicrous because we know that renewable energy and battery storage are needed. That is the combination we would be using and seeking to intensify and deliver in an emergency scenario. That is where the investment can deliver more, not just for that specific scenario but for the wider range of energy security scenarios we have. In the time between the committee initially scrutinising this issue and raising a lot of serious concerns and the Bill coming before us, the volatility and insecurity associated with gas, particularly this kind of LNG, have only intensified. We have seen it in relation to what has happened in Iran and the Strait of Hormuz. It is clearly not a safety net; it is a vulnerability.”
“We are spending €1 billion on this one hypothetical scenario when we have real scenarios such as the climate crisis that is accelerating and which we can physically feel, yet we are not he putting the same equivalent resources into tackling those issues of energy security. I know some things are being done on renewables and batteries but, again, there is a big question of what €1 billion adds further to what we are doing and what that would look like. There were a lot of concerns about balancing out and whether this was the right decision to make, some of which I will come to in later amendments. There was a cost-benefit scenario which only looked at whether a terminal is a better cost when compared with wind or battery, not compared with wind and battery.”
“In terms of the wider emergency pressures, the wider crisis we are facing and the wider issues of security and energy security, LNG does not deliver what we need in terms of energy security. It does not deal with the crisis we are having in terms of energy security. That is dealt with by renewables. It does not deal with the climate crisis and the emergencies that have been created. In fact, it intensifies the crisis and the problems we are facing in terms of climate change and related emergencies. It does not help us in those scenarios. It helps only in this very narrow scenario, which is in the case of an interconnector cable being broken. That is it.”
“I am a member of the Joint Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy which examined this issue in some detail. As the Minister of State will be aware, I looked at this issue for a number of years prior to that, and he and I engaged on it when he was a Member of this House. Interestingly, when the committee examined this issue the evidence and case for this terminal were not strong, and the warnings and dangers about its impact, environmentally, socially, in terms of security and financially, were really severe and serious. The case that was being made was limited. The committee produced a cross-party report, which, in its opener, states that there is only one very narrow kind of scenario in which such a terminal might be an appropriate solution and other appropriate solutions might be possible instead.”
“Just a comment. We are coming back in September. The assessment of needs piece has been highlighted by Cara Darmody and the school transport issues have been raised, but childcare is also really important. I signal that SIPTU has produced a really important paper and I was very happy to host its launch. It looks at a roadmap to affordable early years care and sets out really practical steps for how we deliver affordability early and quality employment that ends that situation of the revolving door in our childcare services, which I am sure every Member is familiar with.”
“That is not acceptable practice because planning is part of the democratic structure, the decisions we make about how we want to live together, and it needs proper attention and scrutiny whether you agree or disagree with each of these exemptions. I regret that it is coming so late but also, when we are getting these last-minute measures, the regulations should be circulated. I know they are there to access, but when we are getting these for last-minute decision, that would be a useful measure. Finally, I commend SIPTU-----”
“I also raise a concern that we have eight sets of regulations added to the Order Paper. I do not blame the Seanad Office or the Leader, indeed, for the lateness of their being added. That sits squarely with the Department responsible for planning and development, which has an extraordinary record - I checked back on it – where ten of 11 planning and development Bills in the last decade were brought in the last week of July or the last week of December. It seems like it has a systematic departmental policy of bringing significant decisions through at the last minute. That is something that needs to be addressed. It is a direct pattern. I have looked back. It is always guillotining something through in the last week of July.”
“I want to raise a couple of points on the Order of Business and the guillotining of the LNG Bill. This is a really significant shift away from Ireland, which previously had a track record where we have a ban on fracking. It was introduced by a Fine Gael backbencher back in a good time when backbenchers from Government parties were able to bring legislation forward and have it become law, which is something which should happen again. It is a very significant measure. It is one we had very detailed scrutiny of in the committee. There is a lot to be discussed here. It should not be guillotined. It is an important thing. I do not think you can get it right but it is one where harm reduction is really important in relation to this legislation and it should not be guillotined.”
“18, looks for, within 6 months of the passing of this Act, "a report on equivalent international legal obligations to prevent trade that assist in the maintenance of illegal occupation." Our time is limited so I will come to-----”
“If Ireland had pushed forward then in something like this prohibition on illegal goods, if Israel had had to fight it out in terms of international law and actually had to defend its position in relation to international law at that time, rather than being able to act and continue in a culture of impunity expanding indefinitely, which has now become so rampant, it would have been good. It would have been good if we had actually shown leadership then rather than relying on persuasion and it is really important that we show leadership now. Will the Minister come back in six months? If it does not deliver at EU level, what is going to happen next? What is Ireland going to do? The other two amendments are very simple. Amendment No.”
“I say that because back in 2017 and 2018 when Senator Black and I and others brought the Bill forward again, we listened for far too long to Simon Coveney and to everybody else to the speeches he gave about bringing people with us and how we were slowly making progress. I do not think anybody is going to pretend that the Israeli position has been progressing in a constructive way now. That is not what happened. Years and years were lost when the international law was clear and action was not taken.”
“I genuinely wish her the absolute best and we will support her in pressing for these things, but either she comes back telling us that the EU is now delivering its part of the two prongs and that it has agreed to ban trade in goods and services from illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian land, or she comes forward with steps and processes that Ireland may take, and can take as has been clarified again and again under public policy grounds, to ensure compliance through the implementation of national policy. What this is saying is that there is a six-month limit on how long we should be waiting to see if we can persuade people to move.”
“If, in that context, the Council of the European Union does not take action to ban the trade and services after that six months and if the Minister cannot deliver that in the next six months during our Presidency, then we have to say that delivery of this measure through persuasion alone does not look likely, and it certainly does not look likely within a timeline that represents justice. What I want in that report is that in six months' time, the Minister will come back as our next step, and tell us what has happened at EU level.”
“My question is on what happens if that is not done. Then it goes back to national responsibility, although it is a national responsibility anyway. I really feel the public is frustrated with anything that looks like further passing of the buck and further stalling. Ireland has the Presidency of the European Union for the next six months. Ireland, during a Presidency of the European Union, will have the huge weight of evidence, the European Union's own evidence which it has presented to the Council of Minister saying that there are breaches in human rights and telling what is happening. It will have the weight of the world's guidance and opinions, of the genocide case there and all of these other cases, as well as the statements that Israel is making weekly - daily - in relation to its intentions to breach international law.”