Paul Murphy
Dublin South-West · People Before Profit-Solidarity · Ireland
“The Minister of State assured us we are bound by international law but then went on to talk about the fact that he wants to deploy troops outside the framework of international law. That is why the Government is getting rid of the triple lock. All the triple lock does is ensure that we only can send troops in line with international law.”
“The case for MetroLink south west is extremely strong. There are 350,000 people living between the Luas red and green lines. That is who will be served by this.”
“Hopefully the junior Minister will be able to clarify. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, said earlier to Deputy Ó Laoghaire, "The people I speak to do not like the fact that Russia has essentially removed, or will remove in the coming months, all our peacekeeping troops from UNIFIL".”
“I, too, want to ask about the senior Minister. This came up at the Dáil reform committee last week. It is very peculiar that a senior Minister is here and has answered previous questions on the triple lock today and then – no offence meant - we have the junior Minister answering these questions, which precisely prevents the continuation o…”
“Its defence is that we should not worry because the Government is only going to send them as part of an international force. I do not think anyone here thinks the Government is going to invade a country all by itself.”
“It is there in black and white in the programme for Government and the Government needs to live up to its commitment to do a new, properly independent feasibility study. I appeal to the Minister of State to ask the Minister for Transport to meet with the metro south west group which has been doing such excellent campaigning on this issue.”
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“He says that "taking into account the rising cost of living and the expenses of day-to-day life, it's nearly unbearable and as a worker, I feel disheartened and it's hard to get out of bed in the morning some days." On top of this, he says "the greed of trade employers in Ireland is sickening". I could not agree more. That greed and the dismissive attitude of this Government towards young workers are directly contributing to the housing crisis because it means there are not enough skilled construction workers to build the houses that we need. There are not enough skilled mechanics to run the bus service properly. A lack of mechanics is the main reason that Dublin Bus and Go-Ahead constantly give for ghost buses and cancellations.”
“We have a national minimum wage that is inadequate and is recognised not to be the living wage and then we legally say that young people - those under the age of 20 - and apprentices are legally allowed to be paid a lot less than this inadequate minimum wage. On what planet are people meant to survive on €7.67 an hour? A first-year motor mechanic wrote to me after I introduced the Bill, saying that he is working 40 hours a week on €6.20 an hour. He is expected to pay for his own tools with only a €250 tool allowance. He points out that to even get an apprenticeship in most trades, you have to have a driver's licence, so he has to pay extortionate insurance on top of car loan repayments. He is walking away with €250 a week and is left with only €120 after bills.”
“It means trying to reduce energy usage instead of expanding it, having no more data centres, getting people out of cars into free and frequent public transport and having a nationalised, not-for-profit electricity system that drives investment in renewables. With that comes price controls so that we give people certainty while the transition takes place. The other thing that has to happen is a fight for higher wages. A few weeks ago, I introduced a Bill that would guarantee apprentices and young workers are paid at least the national minimum wage. That should not sound like a very big ask and it is should not require legislation. Right now, craft apprentices are being paid as little as €7.67 an hour, which is €6.48 less than the national minimum wage.”
“However, if we read what comes from the data centre lobbyists themselves, they let the cat out of the bag. There was an article in The Irish Times in December of last year in which Tom Parlon, the representative of the data centre lobbyists in this country, spoke about them directly employing 1,800 people. How many jobs are lost as a consequence of the data centres and the use of AI to replace jobs? We have seen that in Covalen and we are seeing it elsewhere in the economy. More jobs are being lost as a result of these data centres than are being added. We need to tackle this. A serious plan to tackle the cost-of-living crisis simultaneously involves tackling the climate crisis.”
“The Government likes to defend this position with unfounded, ridiculous claims in terms of jobs. It has been trotting out a KPMG report claiming 870,000-odd jobs are related to data centres. The report counted every job that uses cloud computing, thereby fundamentally missing the point of what it is for something to be in the cloud. It means it can be accessed anywhere, which means there is no benefit to it being around the corner from us or even in the same country, as opposed to being somewhere else. It is interesting that the Government used to answer questions in the past about how many people are directly working for data centres. Five or six years ago, however, it simply stopped answering questions about that. It just refused to answer that question and instead talked about all the people who benefit from the data centres.”
“Apart from the electricity price increases we are seeing - we saw a report last week from Friends of the Earth - it is because this Government is beholden to big tech. It is because the Government has laid out the red carpet for big tech and their data centres to use as much electricity as they want. We heard this morning in the Joint Committee on Artificial Intelligence that we are potentially on track to reaching the point where data centres use as much electricity as the rest of the economy and the rest of society combined. They currently use well over 20% of electricity, but we are on track to them using 50% of electricity in this country. That is pushing up prices for ordinary people in this country who have already paid hundreds of euro as a consequence of that.”
“It is the four in ten parents who say they go without or with less so their kids can eat properly. It is everyone who cannot pay rents that the Government has decided should go higher and higher in order to attract in more vultures to resolve our supply problem, ultimately some day long into the future. It is everyone who is behind on their energy bills, hundreds of thousands of people, because prices are the highest in Europe. It is disabled people who had about €1,400 cruelly taken from them in the most recent budget, despite the Government having billions of euro in surplus. Now, we have the ESB announcing another 8% increase in electricity and gas prices. People are at the end of their tether; they just have not got it. They cannot be bled dry by the Government, landlords and energy companies any longer. The rip-off off has to stop.”
“The other thing we need is to have price caps on petrol and diesel, so that every VAT and excise cut we see is not swallowed up by price increases. People need certainty that prices will not go any higher than €1.75 per litre, which is the price cap in People Before Profit's emergency price controls Bill. We first introduced that Bill during the previous energy crisis. It is even more important now when oil prices are so volatile and every day is bringing different news about when or if Trump and Netanyahu's illegal war will finally end. The Finance Bill is only a drop in the ocean compared to the worsening cost-of-living crisis people are facing every single day. It is not only motorists who need help with rising costs. It is everyone who is forced to cut back on their weekly shop.”
“I had a look at petrol and diesel prices before I came into the Chamber. The Circle K on Belgard Road in Tallaght is charging €1.85 per litre for diesel and €1.84 per litre for petrol, even after the two rounds of VAT and excise cuts. A year ago, the average price for diesel was €1.76 and for petrol, it was €1.68. There is, therefore, still a big additional cost for ordinary people. In my constituency, many people are basically forced to drive because public transport is so bad and inadequate. It depends on where they are going, obviously. The least the Government should do during the fuel crisis - it should have done it a long time ago but it should do it now - is abolish fares for public transport and put on a load of additional buses so the service is made frequent and reliable.”
“Of course, it is welcome to have some recognition by the Government of the needs of autistic children and their right to education but children with Down's syndrome have an equal right to education appropriate to their needs. An hour a day of special education support in mainstream does not provide that. Will the Taoiseach raise this? Will the Government commit to opening more general learning disability classes?”
“I raise the matter of a group of children who are being left behind by this Government. Those are children with mild or moderate learning disabilities and complex needs. Mothers of children with Down's syndrome have written to me to express how abandoned they feel. They say that the Government is intentionally misleading people by talking about special classes when 89% of those classes are designed for children with autism. It is welcome that we are getting autism classes but the Government should be honest about that. When the Government announced in March that it was sanctioning 387 new special classes, only one was a general learning disability class.”
“At the very least, will the Taoiseach agree that this should be suspended until there has been a consultation and until elected councillors get to vote on it?”
“South Dublin County Council management is planning massive rent hikes for 20,000 families from July of this year. That includes council tenants, HAP tenants, homeless HAP tenants and approved housing body tenants. The council is increasing the base rate by 25% but also making a series of other changes such as incorporating into the assessment the working family payment, which means some families are going to see their rents increased in July by 53%. Not only is this massively unjust and unaffordable for many, it flies in the face of what elected councillors agreed in a motion unanimously passed in February that stated there should be no change until there has been consultation with tenants and tenants unions, such as Community Action Tenants Union, CATU. That consultation has not taken place.”
“The question for the Taoiseach is whether the Government will finally concede to the family's request to have an independent inquiry into the death of Terence Wheelock. Will the Taoiseach also indicate when his Minister is going to implement the regulations to allow the renaming of Diamond Park to the Terence Wheelock Memorial Park, as wanted by the community?”
“Family, friends and supporters of justice for Terence Wheelock were on the streets on Saturday. Terence was a young man who left his home 21 years ago. He was arrested by the Garda and brought to Store Street Garda station where he received fatal injuries from which he never recovered, and he never came home again. After that, his cell was completely renovated and repainted instead of being preserved for investigation. The photos show substantial bruising and cuts that were not on Terence's body when he was arrested. His clothes were heavily bloodstained. Changes were made to his custody record and there were significant problems with the timeframe between the supposed incident and an ambulance being called.”
“However, there is no chance of the Government doing any of that. In fact, it is doing the opposite. It is living in the last century and must get its head out of the clouds.”
“They are sacrificing more and more of our electricity and water supply for vast, empty data centres that do not create tech jobs or protect them from being cut. In fact, they are speeding up tech job losses by creating the infrastructure that the big tech bosses need to replace more tech workers with AI. Every data centre is like a giant Pac-Man gobbling up energy, water and jobs. The ESRI predicts significant declines in household income and increases in inequality as a result of AI, including a 30% increase in capital income to the richest 10%. It is so extreme that even the ESRI is now recommending expanding taxes on wealth and capital. In other words, a wealth tax and an increase in corporation tax and inheritance taxes on the rich. That is precisely what we have been calling for.”
“AI still is not profitable, despite all the trillions being speculated on it, and nobody has proven yet that it will lead to widespread productivity gains. An economics paper published earlier in the year, called "The AI Layoff Trap", shows how even if it does, the economic impact will still be dire because the more capitalists replace workers with AI, the fewer workers there will be to buy good and services, and consumer markets will collapse. What is the Government doing to plan for this? Not nothing but worse than nothing. It is cheering on the AI lemmings as they race over the cliff. The Taoiseach and the rest of the Cabinet are constantly banging on about adopting more AI and doing it faster even though they know it is going to decimate jobs and worsen inequality.”
“Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have turned the economy into a corporate tax haven where income and wealth are distributed like an upside down pyramid but jobs go the other way around. A small number of mega rich US multinationals are booking billions in profits and paying a sliver of the workforce very high salaries and bonuses. In turn, this is supporting over 500,000 low-paid service workers in hospitality, retail, cleaning and childcare. That is why Ireland has the highest level of market income inequality in Europe. If 200,000 higher paid jobs are lost, or even more, when the AI bubble bursts and the global economy crashes, the wider impact on jobs and workers could be truly catastrophic.”
“An Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, report in April predicted that approximately 7% of Irish jobs could be lost to AI in the short to medium term. That equates to approximately 200,000 jobs. The Central Bank estimated earlier this year that almost 900,000 jobs are at risk of being replaced by AI. That is just direct job losses. In reality, the impact will be a lot worse than that because many of the jobs that are lost will be higher paid roles in ICT and finance. Over 20,000 tech jobs have been lost in the past year alone and the rate of job loss is accelerating. Meta is cutting 20% of jobs. Covalen Solutions is trying to make 700 workers redundant. Oracle is cutting 150 jobs.”
“It is nearly June and there is still no climate action plan for 2026 and no date for when it is going to be published. Is that the vital political leadership the Taoiseach bloviated about at COP30 in Belém? People should be very angry about this. The Government’s failure to get us out of fossil fuel dependency is costing us thousands of euro on our energy bills, destroying the climate and is going to cost us billions of euro in climate fines that could have been spent on transitioning to low-cost renewable energy.”
“I agree but this morning’s EPA report shows the Government has no interest in cutting fossil fuel dependency to protect us from the climate and cost-of-living crises. It is going to miss the 2030 emissions target by more than half and possibly by three quarters. A pathetic 4% reduction in emissions from agriculture, which is our biggest-emitting sector, is projected with existing measures. Given Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael prioritise profits above all else, you would think they at least might take action on the economic risk of being faced with having to pay up to €26 billion as a consequence but no chance. The climate Minister is back to openly admitting he is going to break the Government’s own climate law after claiming it was taken out of context when he first said it over Christmas.”
“We need free retrofitting and solar panels for every household that needs it, including plug-in solar for renters and free, frequent and fast public transport. We also need to stop building data centres. Again, there is nothing in the motion about the data centres that are currently using about a quarter of our electricity and driving up energy costs for everyone. The Government wants to build even more. It wants to pretend they will somehow save the tech jobs in Meta, Covalen and Oracle that are being decimated as we speak. One bit of the Government’s countermotion that really stands out is the acknowledgement that "fossil fuel dependence, especially imported fossil fuels, is a major economic vulnerability;".”
“Independent Ireland might come back at the end and explain why rents are missing. Is it because it is a party is made up of ex-Fianna Fáilers that represents the landlords, just like Fianna Fáil does? Is it because Independent Ireland would prefer people to blame immigrants for the housing crisis, rather than the landlords who profit from the crisis? People Before Profit want price caps on energy to give people certainty about costs. To do that we need to bring our energy system back into public ownership and run it on a not-for-profit basis to provide permanently low-cost, renewable electricity to every household in the country. We need massive public investment in offshore wind and solar.”
“I welcome the supports for ordinary people in this motion, but they do not go far enough. People are really suffering. They cannot afford food, rent, or childcare. There are 500,000 people who are in arrears on their electricity and gas bills. We need more than once-off cost-of-living payments and temporary excise cuts. We need a radical transformation of how this country is run. Instead of the Ireland for the rich we currently have, we need an Ireland where people come before profit. We are not going to get that from this Government or from right wing Independents. Noticeably missing from the motion is anything to do with rents. Rents are one of the biggest costs for very many people. They are going up at a record rate and the motion has nothing to say about it.”
“The EPA report mentions limiting phosphorus application by farmers, controlling livestock access and safely storing slurry and manure. It recommended creating a harmful algae bloom action plan for Irish lakes. Where is the plan? What is the Government going to do to stop pollution from agriculture devastating more of our lakes like what has happened in Lough Neagh and Lady's Island?”
“Nine days ago, hundreds of people marched to Lough Neagh to protest the ecocide of our largest lake. Last year, the EPA published research on 35 lakes in the South. Two thirds are classed as at risk under the water framework directive. Seven important Irish lakes are found to be at high risk of Lough Neagh-type toxic algae blooms, including loughs Derg, Ramor, Sheelin, Sillan, Muckno and Naglack. Lady's Island in Wexford where toxic blue-green algae have all but killed the lake was not included in the research. The EPA said that agricultural diffused population is the most important pressure on most Irish water bodies. It said that phosphorus run-off from pasture-based farming is the most important land-based factor behind algae blooms significantly impacting three quarters of our lakes.”
“It is hard to think of community infrastructure more important than our postal services. It, therefore, makes no sense whatsoever that the sorting office for Dublin 16 is being moved out of Dublin 16, from Edmondstown to Lucan. It will be a disaster for workers who have built their lives around the fact that they live near where they work, and it will result in massively worsened postal services because the letters and packets will get stuck on the M50. The routes will not get finished and, potentially, people will have to go all the way to Lucan to pick up their packages. Will the Taoiseach join me in urging An Post to sit down and meet representatives of the community and reverse this disastrous decision?”
“It is very dangerous that people could be defined as terrorists in this way. I am interested in the Minister's response. I assume he will say the fuel protestors would not be defined as terrorists under this legislation. I am interested in how he will say they are not because, on my reading, it seems they can be. That is what is so worrying about this proposal.”
“16, which states the engagement by a person via protest, advocacy or dissent, or strike, lockout or industrial action, shall not, in and of itself, constitute grounds for saying that it is terrorism, but it also leaves open the possibility that a protest can be defined as terrorism. As for non-violent civil disobedience, which includes "endangering traffic" or "criminal damage" that has the purpose of "compelling a government or an international organisation to perform or abstain from performing an act", I have been on plenty of protests in my life and all of them have had the purpose of compelling a government or international organisation to do or not do something. That is the whole purpose of a protest. Whether it is unduly compelling, I do not know, but it is certainly trying to compel them to do something.”
“If we combine endangering traffic, as so defined in the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act, with "unduly compelling a government or an international organisation to perform or abstain from performing an act", when obviously these protests were designed to call for a cap on fuel prices among other things, can these people be defined as terrorists? Regarding criminal damage, attempting to get into Shannon Airport and break the US war machine, which is being used to encourage and collaborate with the genocide, is criminal damage, yes, but it is absolutely morally correct to do so. Does that become a terrorist act? That is the problem with this whole Bill in reality. I know the Government has amendment No.”
“The offences specified include a lot of serious stuff that people would recognise as terrorism but also include criminal damage and endangering traffic. Could the fuel protests have been defined as terrorist activity? They were potentially endangering traffic under the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997. The definition of endangering traffic states "intentionally places or throws any dangerous obstruction upon a railway, road, street, waterway or public place". Would placing a tractor on O'Connell Street or in front of a refinery be counted as endangering traffic? I suspect it would.”
“However, we are expected to accept that we are not dealing with any of that kind of terrorism here, and we will deal with it somewhere else. Why are there double standards? Why must we accept that the genocide of the Palestinian people and the complete mistreatment of anyone who attempts to stand up for the Palestinian people do not count as terrorism and we do not want to cover that here? My second point relates to Government amendment No. 7, which seeks the redrafting of the definition of "terrorist activity" to include "an offence specified in Part 1 of Schedule 2 committed with the intention of ... [among other things] unduly compelling a government or an international organisation to perform or abstain from performing an act".”
“I support the Sinn Féin amendment and I have concerns about the Government amendment. I have concerns about the whole Bill, to be honest. I will start on the Sinn Féin stuff, to which the Minister responded by saying this is about real terrorism, it is about brown people or republicans. That is the type of terrorism he is dealing with here, not any of that fine state terrorism we see carried out by the US and Israel. Today, we have video of an Irish citizen being terrorised by Itamar Ben-Gvir, the security minister in Israel. It shows an Irish citizen, a peaceful activist trying to bring humanitarian aid and break the illegal blockade of Gaza, being physically mistreated while Itamar Ben-Gvir gloats about it.”
“That is why we have the development of a military industrial complex in this country. It is why the Minister of State repeatedly used the phrase "a referendum is neither necessary nor appropriate". Why is it not necessary or appropriate? Of course it is not necessary for the Government. It just wants to get rid of the triple lock. Why is not appropriate? The people do not believe the Government. They do not agree with the Government and it knows that. The Government should allow the people to decide. If it is so confident on this issue, it should allow the people to have a plebiscite on its proposal to get rid of the triple lock.”
“We are a small, geographically isolated country that would never conceivably be able to defend itself militarily. It has no colonial past or history of military aggression. Neutrality is our best defence. That argument makes no sense. What this is about is that the ruling classes have been fattened up by decades of US foreign direct investment and corporate tax haven bonanzas, and now think of themselves not as a part of a post-colonial periphery but instead want to be a part of the western imperialist core. They want to get in on the act of the intervening in weaker countries and profiting from the military industrial complex. They want to be big boys in the big boys' club in the European Union and NATO, not down in the General Assembly with other post-colonial countries.”
“The Government's answer is to point to Ukraine and Russia, and more vaguely to other conflicts internationally, and to say that the triple lock, for which one should read "the UN system as a whole", because the triple lock means UN approval by either the General Assembly or the Security Council, is no longer fit for purpose. We look around the world and know where that attitude leads. Look at Gaza and Lebanon. Look at attacks on UN peacekeeping troops by Israel, including our own troops. There has been mass murder of UN and humanitarian workers on a scale unprecedented in history and genocide carried out openly and unpunished before the eyes of the entire world. The reason the Government and large sections of the media want to get rid of Irish neutrality is not because people here are more unsafe.”
“In other words, the Government says that we could have sent troops to participate in the invasion of Iraq, which would have been possible if not for the triple lock, but can still say Ireland is neutral as long as it does not join NATO. It can join the joint expeditionary force, send weapons to Ukraine, train Ukrainian soldiers, participate in the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which meets at NATO headquarters, and buy billions of euro of weapons from French arms manufacturers. It can do all that, while saying it is neutral because neutrality has been redefined by the Government to simply mean not signing on the dotted line to become a member of NATO. Why is this happening now?”
“He said that was the unambiguous position under every party leader since Seán Lemass. He said that suddenly, and without discussion, the triple lock was anathema. Those were the words of former defence Minister, Deputy Willie O'Dea. Why is this happening now? Why is the Government trying to get rid of the triple lock while pretending to the rest of us that this has nothing to do with reality? It is not telling the truth to people. It is redefining neutrality, as has happened again in the Minister's speech today, as simply being that Ireland does not participate in military alliances or common or mutual defence arrangements.”
“The reason the Minister of State, Deputy Murnane O'Connor, does not want to answer whether that is the Government's position is revealing. The Government wants to get rid of the triple lock because it wants to send troops abroad outside the framework of international law. There is all this talk of vetoing this, that and the other. The triple lock means we can only send troops within the framework of international law. That is all it does. The Government wants to get rid of the triple lock because it wants to send troops outside the framework of international law. That is the reality. Another Fianna Fáiler said that for decades, Fianna Fáil was clear that the triple lock, which makes military deployments contingent on a UN mandate plus Dáil and Cabinet decisions, was critical to our neutrality.”
“This is from 5 March. Is this the Government's position or not? The Minister of State, Deputy Troy, said: Ireland's position on the use of force where there is no UN mandate or authorisation is well established and known. For fear that anyone is in any doubt, let me be clear: it is wrong and it is illegal. He was summing up a debate on the Middle East on 5 March. There is a problem with the Government, if that is its position. What does the triple lock do? It means that we cannot send troops except where there is a UN mandate or authorisation. That is precisely what the triple lock does. The Minister of State, Deputy Troy, was correct in what he said. The deployment of forces outside the framework of a UN mandate or authorisation is against international law. That is the truth.”
“I thank Deputy Stanley for this excellent and important motion. I will start with a quote from the Fianna Fáil Minister of State, Deputy Troy: Ireland's position on the use of force where there is no UN mandate or authorisation is well established and known. For fear that anyone is in any doubt, let me be clear: it is wrong and it is illegal. Does the Minister of State, Deputy Murnane O'Connor, agree with the Minister of State, Deputy Troy, on that? I will repeat the quote, if the Minister of State wants: Ireland's position on the use of force where there is no UN mandate or authorisation is well established and known. For fear that anyone is in any doubt, let me be clear: it is wrong and it is illegal. Does the Minister of State, Deputy Murnane O'Connor, agree with that? Is that the Government position? I will try again.”
“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?”
“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.”
“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.”
“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?”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”