I call Deputy Holly Cairns, leader of the Social Democrats.

I have run out of words to describe the horror unfolding in Gaza and now in Lebanon. This week, I and millions of other people, watched a young man in a hospital tent burn alive. He was still attached to an IV drip and was reaching out his hand for help. The Israeli army had targeted a missile strike on tents in the grounds of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. Not content with destroying all the hospitals in Gaza, it is now bombing the ruins. The name of the man who died was Shaban al-Dalou. He was 19 years old and a computer engineer student. Shaban was sheltering in a tent on the hospital grounds with his parents and his five siblings. He had been there for some time. In February, in a social media video, he said his family had been displaced five times. He had been trying to leave Gaza and reach safety. On his GoFundMe page he wrote:

I used to have big dreams, but the war has ruined them ... Time feels like it's stopped in Gaza, and we're stuck in a never-ending nightmare.

Shaban is one of more than 40,000 people in Gaza who have been slaughtered. His mother also burned alive. I name him here today because we do not hear the names or see the faces of the victims in Gaza. Every single one of those more than 40,000 people had a life, a family and hopes and dreams, but they have been massacred in a glorified prison camp for more than 12 months while the world sits idly by. Journalists in Gaza who have been documenting this genocide have been targeted and killed too, to stop them broadcasting Israel's war crimes to the world. How can we watch this massacre every single day and not do more? The Israeli state has lost any pretence of morality or proportionality. It is a rogue state, which is attempting to plunge the whole region into war. This Government, which talks tough on Israel, has yet to apply any actual sanctions. Our economic, diplomatic and travel relationship with Israel is virtually unchanged.

We now learn the Government is finally going to move on the occupied territories Bill because the legal advice is that the International Court of Justice, ICJ, ruling in the summer has changed things. Illegal Israeli settlements were a breach of international law when the occupied territories Bill was drafted in 2018. The genocide unfolding in Gaza was a breach of international law last year. We did not need the ICJ ruling to act. The ruling just means the Government has run out of excuses for inaction. With an election imminent, the Government has almost run out of time to do anything. Everyone in this House will co-operate to get the occupied territories Bill enacted. It seems like the election will be in a matter of weeks. What is being done to get this over the line before then?

What is happening in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon is absolutely unacceptable. It is clearly in breach of international humanitarian law. In terms of what happened in northern Gaza in the last week, we witnessed war crimes of a shocking nature taking place. I immediately called that out in a statement in respect of what was happening in northern Gaza and followed that up at the Foreign Affairs Council on Monday this week. I really had to say to some of my colleagues around the table there that the European Union needed to do far more in respect of the horrific murder, slaughter that is going on in Gaza, and the collective punishment of an entire people.

I disagree with the Deputy saying this Government has not done anything. I do not like that rhetoric, that sort of partisanship in this debate or the almost holier-than-thou attitude from the Opposition vis-à-vis the Government. There is a collective view in this House on what should happen here. There should be an immediate ceasefire. There should be a release of all hostages. The holding of hostages for a full year by Hamas for a full year is equally heinous and should not be tolerated. There should also be an immediate surge of humanitarian aid. Ireland was one of the first countries to defend UNRWA, which is the most practical thing we can do for the people of Gaza and the West Bank and the Palestinians in Jordan and Lebanon. Despite all the rhetoric and "do this, do that", the most significant thing we have done in this was to stand up and stop the undermining of UNRWA and say to our European Union colleagues not to pull funding from UNRWA. We helped to reverse that policy position, which one Commissioner was advocating when he had pulled funds from UNRWA. Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, acknowledges that. That is one thing. We were also one of the few member states, along with Spain, to recognise the State of Palestine. Everybody in this House wanted that. As soon as we did it, of course, everybody in the House said we were doing nothing, that is done; move on. The reality is that this created its own issues but it was the right thing to do as part of the Arab peace plan. Everything we have been doing has been working with Arab nations that want peace, namely, Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Palestine itself. Talking to the members of the Palestinian Authority, they do not speak about the Irish Government like the Deputy does. They genuinely do not. They say Ireland is giving very strong leadership.

On the question of the occupied territories Bill, the ICJ's opinion does matter and does change the circumstances. I can elaborate on that with the Deputy if she wishes. I have no issue in talking to her and to other party leaders in respect of this. For far too long, we have too much simplistic narrative about the Middle East and we need to be very clear in how we progress this, making sure we can do it in an effective way, both politically and legally.

I know the ICJ ruling on the illegal Israeli settlements was extremely important and welcome, but I repeat that we did not need it to act. I presume the Tánaiste agrees with that because if I am correct, Fianna Fáil brought forward the Bill in 2019.

Yes.

However, because the Government waited, we are now running out of time. I heard the Tánaiste on The Irish Times podcast say that we would have an election after critical pieces of legislation were passed. Does that mean there is an army of lawyers in the Attorney General's office and the Department of Finance working morning, noon and night to try to get the occupied territories Bill over the line? The Tánaiste said it needs amendments. Are they being drafted as we speak? Is this hugely important legislation being prioritised or are we just going to get more words?

There are other things that we can do. At a bare minimum, we can stop the passage of weapons through Irish airspace. This is an issue that was first raised by The Ditch months ago. Last night, the Minister of State, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, said on "The Tonight Show" that the Government is still not sure if any weapons were on board those flights. I do not know if she was serious. If The Ditch can find out, I do not know why the Government cannot. Months ago, the Tánaiste said he would introduce travel bans for violent Israeli settlers. Even the United States, Israel's biggest cheerleader, has managed to do that. The Tánaiste talks a lot about what he said and he says that he stood up and said “No”. What has he done and what actions and sanctions have there been?

There are aspects of the occupied territories Bill that are clearly unconstitutional but they can be rectified and amended. It is clearly unconstitutional as it is currently drafted. There was a case just ten days ago concerning France v. the European Commission in respect of Western Sahara. There are very clear similarities between that and the West Bank. The ruling on that was not as favourable as we would have liked given what we want to do in ensuring we can prohibit trade to the occupied territories. That is the target and the objective.

I believe the ICJ gives us a pathway that we did not have because trade is still an exclusive competence of the European Commission; that is a fact. However, there is a public policy exemption that one could invoke. In our view, the ICJ perhaps gives us the potential to invoke that narrow pathway to doing what everyone in the House agrees on, namely, not having trade with the occupied territories. The ICJ ruling, while not binding on all states, is an authoritative statement of international humanitarian law. We cosponsored the resolution that led to the ICJ doing this. We made a written submission to it and the Attorney General made an oral submission to the ICJ on this issue, much of which was reflected in the subsequent judgment that the occupation was illegal and that states now had an obligation not to do anything that would support the occupation. It is very significant in charting and enabling us to navigate a way forward on this question.