Ireland-Israel football match and Gaza
Deputy Bacik urged the Government to oppose the Ireland-Israel match as normalising Israel’s conduct in Gaza. The Taoiseach outlined Ireland’s international, humanitarian and legal actions in support of Palestine but ran out of time.
After their great win against the Netherlands last week, I begin by wishing the Ireland women's team every success tonight as they play France.
Speaking of international sport, I raise the forthcoming Ireland-Israel football match. Football fans and all of us who are horrified by Israel's genocide in Gaza are concerned that this game will go ahead anywhere. We have been hearing from people who have contacted us in their droves with one message, that they want to stop the game in October. They want the Taoiseach and his Government to take a stand against the normalisation of genocide through sport. They want him to take a stand against Israel's war crimes in Gaza, the West Bank and south Lebanon. They want to stop the game from going ahead anywhere in the world.
This is about more than just one football match. Taking on Israel neither starts nor ends with this game. That is why Labour has been calling for full suspension of the EU-Israel trade agreement. That is why our party has called for the full passage of the occupied territories Bill to include a ban on both goods and services. We have been calling for stronger action to prevent US military refuelling in Shannon Airport. This is about whether states that are guilty of grave crimes against humanity can continue to enjoy normal and indeed preferential treatment while atrocities continue.
This is not just about Israel, Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir and their acolytes. This is about Vladimir Putin too. Ireland and the Government rightly condemn Russian aggression against Ukraine, as we all should, yet Irish-made alumina is being exported to Russia for use in weapons which are killing Ukrainian civilians. Indeed, exports from Aughinish Alumina have dramatically increased. They have doubled since the outset of Russia's brutal and illegal war. We have spent years in Ireland debating hypothetical military deployments under the triple lock. I deeply regret that the Cabinet is approving plans to abolish the triple lock today, despite strong national support for retaining it, even expressed in the Government's own public consultation. Despite that move, the Government is failing to take practical economic measures against Israel and Russia, which are states engaged in illegal wars of aggression.
Aughinish Alumina is undoubtedly a critical industrial facility for Europe and we are all conscious that hundreds of jobs are tied to the plant in Limerick. A solution must be found to protect those jobs and people's livelihoods, but also ensure a ban on deadly exports to Russia. Aughinish refinery is owned by a Russian company with links to the Kremlin though a sanctioned oligarch founder. The Irish Times has reported that 80% of Irish-made alumina went to Russia in the first three months of this year.
The trade Minister is disputing this figure and his own Department is investigating the ownership of Aughinish. At the same time, the Government is lobbying to keep Aughinish off sanctions lists.
It is easy to condemn war in Ukraine and Gaza. What is harder is taking meaningful action against Putin and Netanyahu and against bullies. Will the Taoiseach use our influence as a proudly neutral country to stand up for international law and protection of human life in Gaza and Ukraine?
Comment on this
I appreciate the Deputy has raised quite a range of issues. I will take Israel, Gaza, the West Bank and the Middle East first. Ireland has taken a stand against Israel internationally and that is well recognised internationally and within the European Union. We continue on the humanitarian side to give very substantive contributions to the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA – close to €150 million at this stage. Of course we have also recognised the State of Palestine. We also intervened in South Africa's International Court of Justice case against Israel under the Genocide Convention. We made a submission, by the Attorney General, to the International Court of Justice on the legal consequences of Israel's actions in the occupied territories. Subsequently, we co-sponsored a resolution at the UN General Assembly seeking to implement the court's advisory opinion. We have been evacuating sick children, along with other countries, from Gaza. We have supported about 300 people to leave Gaza to travel to Ireland since the crisis began, and we have done much more than that.
On the match involving the Football Association of Ireland, UEFA and FIFA have their rules for members of their organisations. Their rules provide that the national football governance bodies must act independently and be free of political interference. A series of countries have been suspended from international competition in the past because of political interference. That is the reality of it. I am not involved with FIFA, or UEFA for that matter, but I believe the Deputy is correct in saying that, at EU level, we should be dealing in a more robust and stronger way in terms of suspending the EU-Israel Association Agreement. I have just met the High Representative for foreign affairs, Kaja Kallas, and have been making that point. I think she is appreciative of the very strong feeling of opinion in Ireland in respect of that. The challenge has been to try to win over a critical majority of member states to that opinion. We have written to the EU Council. I want the issue on the EU Council's meeting next week and we want to see if we can get a vote on the issue of the suspension of that association agreement. That is the Government taking its role.
The problem for the FAI and the football team, and it should not be on them, is that there will be consequences for the football team. To be fair to the Irish football team, it has made a lot of ground recently. It has had good success and is building on that platform. I do not control FIFA, which I think should deal with this globally, as should UEFA in its remit, but the bottom line could be that the football team suffers in terms of seedings and all the rest. That would have repercussions down the line for other competitions ahead. We need to act at European level. I think that is a far more effective way of dealing with the issue.
