This weekend the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, will make an historic first state visit to Ireland on his way to a meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York. I warmly welcome the President's visit and I hope it will be a very productive one. I understand that in a meeting with the Tánaiste on Saturday evening there will be a focus on a number of issues, not least the ongoing illegal blockade of Gaza, and the State's recognition of the state of Palestine, which is now long overdue. A Sinn Féin motion to that effect was passed by the Dáil in 2014 and the Seanad did likewise.

The Taoiseach will recall that there is a commitment in the programme for Government and yet he continues to drag his heels on this matter.

I thank Deputy McDonald.

Now is the time for us to afford the official recognition to the state of Palestine, which is the agreed position of the Oireachtas and a necessary one in international terms.

The programme for Government says that we support the Palestinian state - and we do - and that we intend to recognise the state of Palestine as part of a two-state solution. An agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority to bring that about has not yet happened.

We are working on the diary at the moment, and if I have the opportunity to meet President Abbas myself, I will do so. He will certainly meet the Tánaiste. I will use that opportunity to reaffirm our support for a Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution, and I will also use the opportunity to raise other concerns about democracy and human rights in the Palestinian territories, in particular, for example, the fact that homosexuality has yet to be decriminalised in Gaza. It is important that when we meet representatives of the Palestinian Authority and other Palestinian groups, we support their demand for self determination but that we are not afraid to raise serious issues concerning the violation of human rights in the territories that are controlled by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.