Yesterday, the Taoiseach said he was not going to intervene in the Garvaghy Road-Drumcree stand-off, which is potentially set to escalate again this weekend. He dismissed suggestions that he should call on the British Government, the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and, indeed, the PSNI to stop a triumphalist sectarian Orange Order march going down the Garvaghy Road. I ask him to reconsider that non-interventionist position. I want him to ask himself what kind of mentality or ideology would lead Orangemen to want to march through a mostly Catholic area, where they are not wanted and where that march is going to evoke the trauma and memories of more than 21 people being killed, including the Quinn children, Robert Hamill, Rosemary Nelson and many more. The answer is that it is an ideology and mentality of supremacism and the dehumanisation of one section of the population based on their religion.

I put it to the Taoiseach that it is a mentality and ideology very similar to the one on display from, and being led by, Yoseph Haddad, the mouthpiece for the Israeli regime, in the football stadium in Hungary, where he encouraged chants for the IDF, the people who are carrying out a genocide against the Palestinians, and taunting Irish players with racist abuse. It is a similar supremacist and dehumanising ideology and it leads to death and destruction. It is no coincidence that when I went up to Drumcree eight or nine days ago, before all this started, the community centre there was covered in banners in solidarity with Palestine. That is because the people of the Garvaghy Road understand the connection between the dehumanisation they suffer and how colonialism was based on dividing people on religious grounds, setting Catholic against Protestant just like the Zionist movement set Muslim against Christian and Jew, with all the horrific violence that has flowed from that.

It seems to me that as the leader of a country that has suffered colonialism, oppression and all of the divide-and-rule tactics that led to terrible things here, including the Penal Laws, the so-called Famine - in actuality, mass starvation of the population - and all of that, the Taoiseach has a responsibility to stand up against supremacism and the dehumanisation of a section of the population and to call for this march to be stopped because it is a sectarian, supremacist march. He might also intervene to stop Ireland's next match against Israel because we should not be playing against a regime guilty of genocide.

First, the Deputy's presentation of what I articulated here yesterday is wrong. I did not say I was not going to intervene in anything. Describing my position as a non-interventionist approach is wrong; it is false. Of course, he has to present his argument in that way to justify his subsequent comments. All political leaders - all of us - have an obligation in terms of this issue to be careful of what we say and how we say it if we want a resolution of it.

I do not accept the Deputy's comparison of what is happening in Gaza to the Northern Ireland of today. The situations are incomparable. The deprivation, the attacks, the killing of 75,000 people in Gaza, the continued stymying of aid going into Gaza - how can he compare that to what is happening in Northern Ireland today? There is no comparison. It is just ridiculous to make that comparison.

Northern Ireland has come a long way since the Good Friday Agreement, in which my party and others were centrally involved. Parity of esteem and respect for different traditions were the hallmark of that agreement. Many parades are held across Northern Ireland without any issues through local agreements and mediation between people who work and live together. The shared island initiative is breaking new ground in terms of connectivity between North and South, joint projects and programmes between different communities in music, biodiversity, climate and prevention of violence against women - the whole range of programmes we are now funding, with buy-in from all communities and all traditions.

What I said yesterday was that one single intervention cannot resolve this issue. We have to resolve it through a broader lens if we are serious about a future where different traditions can live together on this island and share the island in a reconciled way. Deputy Boyd Barrett has never publicly condemned Hamas for what happened on 7 October 2023. That is his view of life. Equally, he has referenced the PSNI in a negative way today. I want to pay tribute to the PSNI and to the Chief Constable, Jon Boutcher, for the manner in which he is managing this and trying to navigate it. The PSNI has been placed in a very difficult position. Part of the reform under the Good Friday Agreement was to have greater cross-community participation in the PSNI. There is a growing sense of "let's attack the PSNI and undermine the Patten reforms". We have to work to enhance the Patten reforms and ensure the PSNI continues on its journey of being truly cross-community in membership and so on. Progress has been made, but what I have witnessed and listened to in the past four or five days from quite a number of interlocutors is an attempt to undermine that process. We need to be very careful about that because it will end up in a very negative spiral into the future.

The Minister for foreign affairs met with the Secretary of State last evening. There was a series of exploratory talks between various groups and so on. Those talks will continue today. We have made very clear our view on the position of the Parades Commission. We do not agree with that decision, which is incomprehensible. However, we must now focus on a resolution, and talks are ongoing in that respect.

The scale of horror visited on the Palestinians certainly is of a different order. I do not have time to go into the history but saying there is no connection means the Taoiseach needs to look back at the history. After subjugating people in Ireland, the leaders of the Black and Tans and the Auxiliaries were sent straight to Palestine. In 1936, the Governor General of Jerusalem, when asked why he was backing Zionism, said it was because he wanted to create "a little loyal Jewish Ulster" in the Middle East. The British exported the model they had used to subjugate and divide Catholic and Protestant in Ireland to do the same in Palestine, with horrific consequences. By the way, it is no coincidence that DUP MP Carla Lockhart was standing out with masked men protesting against a Gaza peace march.

As for Jon Boutcher and the PSNI, how come he had already recruited 200 Scottish police officers last Monday or Tuesday week to come to the Garvaghy Road when, at the same time, he was telling the Parades Commission there would not be a public order consequence if the Orange Order march went down the Garvaghy Road? That suggests that Jon Boutcher misled the Parades Commission, with the consequences we are now facing of a stand-off. The Taoiseach needs to stand up against supremacism and an ideology that is about trying to drag the North back to violent conflict and he should speak up against the genocidal horror of the Israeli regime as well.

I agree with the Deputy that we cannot go into history but the Black and Tan model did not work in Ireland. Coming from the county of Cork I know that too well from my history.

In respect of Jon Boutcher and the PSNI, his primary objective, which he articulated with great clarity, was that no person would be injured as a result of what transpired over the last number of days from the decisions made by the Parades Commission onwards. That should be acknowledged. The Deputy talks about supremacy. If you speak to the victims of 30 years of violence, what happened in 30 years on this island was horrific. The activities of the Provisional IRA, the Ulster Volunteer Force and paramilitaries from the loyalist side were horrific. He led an inquiry called Kenova. The victims of all of that violence spoke about his integrity, his inclusiveness and the degree to which he responded to the victims and the families of the victims. The Deputy can try to demonise the individual if he likes but I am not going to do that.

I am just asking a question.

We need a bit of honesty here if we are going to make any way forward and stop retreating always on all sides, including the Deputy's contribution just now. That will not achieve anything into the future. It fits an ideological frame, but it does not deal with the realities of the here and now and how we move forward. If we want a united Ireland in the future, we have to begin to articulate what that looks like and how we include people.