I welcome our witnesses. This is an important meeting for us. I acknowledge those who are present. Ms Chantal Sciberras is the head of policy and advocacy in Dóchas. She is joined by Ms Jane-Ann McKenna, CEO of Dóchas. Ms Bríd McGrath, the director of public affairs with Oxfam Ireland, is here with Mr. Jim Clarken, the CEO of Oxfam Ireland, and Ms Fati N'Zi-Hassane, director of Oxfam in Africa. Mr. Dominic Crowley is with us as well. He is the CEO of Concern. Joining us online is Ms Bushra Khalidi, global humanitarian policy lead for Oxfam International. You are all very welcome.

Today's meeting is to discuss relations between the European Union and Africa, something we have not really explored to any great extent yet at the committee, but it is obviously a very important part of the work we are doing, particularly in light of the Presidency coming up on 1 July. I had the pleasure of speaking at the Africa Day event organised by Oxfam earlier this week. There is no doubt that there is huge policy space for us to operate in on this committee, looking in particular at exploring EU policy on humanitarian development aid and the proposals under the Global Europe instrument, the current humanitarian responses, the delivery of development aid and the current state of play of EU relations with Africa. It is good to look at these issues and it is timely that we are examining them today in the context of the week that is in it and Africa Day earlier this week.

We will also explore related issues as they pertain to the Middle East as well as Africa in our second session with witnesses from Trócaire, Sadaka and Al-Haq and the former EU ambassador to the West Bank and Gaza, Dr. Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff. The committee has included examination of EU support in the region on its work programme as well as the current operation of the EU-Israel Association Agreement and the potential for sanctions and other measures to address the humanitarian crisis there.

I look forward to the discussions in both sessions. We will start, obviously, with session A.

I am obliged to read out a privilege notice. Witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

We do not have any Member joining online, so I will not go through the note on Members joining remotely.

Now I will invite each of the witnesses to make their opening statement, after which the floor will be open to questions from members. We will begin with Oxfam Ireland. Mr. Clarken will start. I hand over to you then, Mr. Clarken.

I thank the Chair and Deputies and Senators. We really appreciate the opportunity to appear before the committee. Ireland's EU Presidency comes at a profoundly important moment for Europe and the wider world. We are living through a convergence of crises: conflict and geopolitical instability, accelerating climate breakdown, deepening inequality and growing distrust in democratic institutions. According to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data organisation, ACLED, some 240,000 deaths were linked to global conflict last year, a trend that has increased sharply over the past decade. Heat-related deaths are now at an average of 546,000 per year, up 63% since the 1990s. Some 72% of the world's population now live under autocratic or authoritarian regimes, according to V-Dem.

Many people feel economically insecure, politically unheard and fearful about the future. At the same time, the international rules-based order is under enormous strain. Humanitarian norms are weakening, international law is increasingly applied inconsistently and many countries in the global south view the international system as unequal and selective. It is in that context that Ireland assumes the Presidency.

Presidencies matter because they help shape tone, momentum and political priorities. At its best, the European Union is not simply a market or geopolitical bloc but a values-based project rooted in democracy, co-operation and the belief that shared prosperity and shared rights create stronger societies. Over the past two months, Oxfam Ireland held workshops across Ireland as part of our Ground Up Conversations: The Europe that we want series. Action on climate change, housing, a caring economy, digital rights, gender justice and equality came out strongly. Participants in Donegal reflected the need for a focus on neglected rural communities. Most of all, the young people expressed a strong desire for Ireland to help restore a sense of moral leadership within Europe. This chimes with a growing concern that the EU risks becoming more transactional and less principled in its external action by prioritising short-term geopolitical and economic interests over poverty reduction, human rights and international solidarity. The EU is also in danger of increasing irrelevance. If it mimics the other major blocs in the world and prioritises only perceived self-interest in the short term, then how exactly will Europe differentiate itself and its offering in the world? Ireland is well placed to help counter that trend.

I thank the Chair for his attendance at and participation in Africa Day earlier in the week. We believe Ireland could make one of its strongest and most distinctive contributions through a renewed focus on Africa and EU–African Union relations, similar to what the Spanish Presidency did with Latin America and the Caribbean in 2023. That is a very strong precedent and it had huge ongoing impact. Africa is central to Europe’s future economically, politically and environmentally. By 2050, one in four people on Earth will be African. However, too often the EU still approaches Africa through the lenses of resource extraction or geopolitical competition. Ireland can help shift that relationship toward genuine partnership. The Afrobarometer in 2025 found China was viewed positively by 60% of respondents, while the European Union was just at 49%. Ireland could help strengthen the EU’s relationship with Africa by championing an AU–EU partnership on climate justice and green industrialisation that prioritises local needs; supporting stronger action on tax justice, illicit financial flows and extreme inequality; promoting greater African representation in international institutions, including the UN Security Council; and ensuring that Global Gateway investments deliver clear benefits to African countries and communities.

The upcoming negotiations on the EU’s next multi-annual financial framework will also be critically important. Other colleagues might elaborate on that a bit more. Oxfam believes Ireland should support a strengthened external action budget, including a robust Global Europe instrument and ring-fenced humanitarian funding. However, this is not simply about the amount of money; it is also about purpose. We are increasingly concerned EU external financing is becoming more transactional and tied to security priorities, migration objectives or access to critical raw materials. Oxfam and Eurodad research into 40 Global Gateway projects found more than 60% benefited at least one European company. This demonstrates the high risk that the Global Gateway prioritises the promotion of opportunities for European businesses in the global south over development objectives, such as poverty reduction. Ireland has an opportunity during its Presidency to defend a principled approach to development co-operation grounded in Article 208 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which places poverty reduction at the centre of EU development policy. We urge Ireland to push for reform of the EU’s Global Gateway and Global Europe instruments to explicitly prioritise poverty reduction, transparency, climate justice and locally led development, rather than functioning primarily as vehicles for European geopolitical and commercial interests; stronger safeguards, transparency and accountability within Global Europe funding; and the restoration of spending targets on gender equality, human development and least developed countries that are not in the draft proposal.

Turning to the Middle East, in Gaza Oxfam has been able to reach over 1.3 million people with life-saving aid since October 2023 through our extraordinary colleagues and partners on the ground. Nevertheless, more than 500 humanitarian workers have been killed since that date, in addition to the at least 70,000 people who have died there. Aid access remains severely constrained and Israeli authorities are now seeking to deregister dozens of international aid organisations, including Oxfam itself. This deregistration - or to call it by a truer name, expulsion - of aid organisations in Gaza makes independent humanitarian action virtually impossible and collapses aid delivery systems. This has knock-on implications across the globe, not just in the region. It is deeply alarming. We are asking Ireland to push even more strongly on humanitarian access and the protection of civilians in Gaza and across the wider Middle East. My colleague Ms Khalidi might elaborate on that later. We urge the Government, particularly at the upcoming Foreign Affairs Council, to push for EU agreement to use all available leverage to secure the suspension and reversal of the plans to expel Oxfam and our sister organisations from Gaza and to push for the opening of all crossings, the unhindered entry of aid, large-scale land access for aid and the protection of humanitarian workers.

On inequality, the Stiglitz-led inequality report by the South African Government leading into the G20, which Ireland was a guest participant at, described a global inequality emergency. It found 83% of countries, representing 90% of the world’s population, now meet the World Bank definition of highly unequal. Just 12 of the world’s richest billionaires now own more wealth than the poorest half of humanity, which comprises more than 4 billion people. Inequality is not only an economic issue; it is increasingly a democratic issue. Extremism thrives when inequality deepens and trust in institutions collapses. The Stiglitz report, supported by Oxfam researchers, recommended the establishment of an international panel on inequality to drive global agreement to tackle inequality. This proposal has been backed by South Africa, Spain, Brazil and Norway. Ireland recently joined the Global Alliance Against Inequality and we warmly welcome that decision. To drive greater international co-operation we urge Ireland to support the establishment of the proposed international panel on inequality and help get wider EU support. This is very much an EU issue. It is not a global south issue but is very much centred in European politics.

The European Union remains one of the world’s most important values-based projects. Ireland has an opportunity during its Presidency to help renew and strengthen that vision at a critical moment in history. I look forward to the discussion.

Thanks very much, Mr. Clarken. Just to let the witnesses know, I plan to bring in Ms N'Zi-Hassane first and then go to Ms Khalidi, who is online, and and Dóchas and Concern. Ms N'Zi-Hassane may go ahead.

Thank you very much, Chair. I wish the members of the committee a good afternoon. Monsieur le Président, permettez-moi également de vous remercier pour votre accueil et pour votre disponibilité. It is an honour to have the opportunity to address this committee. I have travelled from Nairobi, Kenya - this is a long journey with a significant carbon footprint - to draw the attention of the members to issues of strategic importance.

In December 2023, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution launching an historic inclusive process to draft the UN framework convention on international tax co-operation. Ireland was not among the strongest supporters of this initiative, but from an African perspective this was an historic win. Despite the narrative of a continent supposedly too consumed by conflict, economic pressures and political fragility to act collectively, African UN member states spearheaded the conversation about this UN tax convention. They built the necessary alliances and decisively moved the process into a space where majority-world countries now have a voice equal to those in the global north. This is not an isolated approach. With a growing number of global issues, one must expect Africa to show up as one, strong in numbers and aligned with a common vision. Seeing Africa becoming an organised and strong political force should convince Europe to start building a genuine partnership with the continent now.

We are not the strongest supporters of the global gateway, but since it is now firmly on the table, let us ensure this framework delivers real benefits for African community and helps bring back Europe as a credible and relevant partner of the continent. This means putting poverty and inequality reduction back at the heart of the EU-AU co-operation. It means protecting development co-operation from becoming an instrument of migration management.

To build a genuine partnership, three shifts must happen. First, investments must follow African priorities. Second, Europe must work alongside African institutions, particularly the African Union and the African Continental Free Trade Area. Third, Africa must be recognised for what it is, an indispensable global partner. Ireland has a unique role here, as it brings long-standing ties with Africa, credibility on international solidarity and an important voice within Europe. In a nutshell, I respectfully urge the members to make my travel to Dublin worth its fuel, and to hear my plea. Europe must be willing to build an equitable partnership, one that reflects Africa's political, demographic and economic weight. Africa is already asserting its place as a co-architect of the global future. If Europe is serious about its own future, it must meet Africa there. Ireland can broker this as the good-faith partner it has always been.

Thank you. I now call on Ms Bushra Khalidi, who is joining us online from Ramallah.

I thank the Cathaoirleach and the committee for inviting Oxfam Ireland to give this evidence today. I am speaking as Oxfam's global humanitarian policy lead but I am also speaking as a Palestinian. I live in the occupied West Bank, as someone whose family, colleagues and friends are every day living this reality that Mr. Clarken mentioned. I am speaking to the committee on the first day of Eid. For Palestinians and Muslims across the world, today should be a day of family, dignity, generosity and joy but this morning Palestinians are waking up to grief again. On the eve of Eid, last night, Israeli forces bombed Gaza again and children were pulled from the rubble overnight, again. Families in Lebanon faced another night of bombardment as well. In the West Bank, Israeli settlers, protected and enabled by the Israeli state, continued attacks on Palestinians communities, land and homes.

I want to start here because in rooms like this, we use terms like "humanitarian access", "protection of civilians", "international law" and "ceasefire". These are important terms, but for us they are not abstract policy terms; they are the difference between whether a child drinks clean water or contaminated water, whether a farmer can reach his land, whether a family sleep in their home tonight or watch it be demolished by the morning, or whether a child wakes up for Eid or is buried before sunrise. Today, across Gaza and the West Bank, Palestinians are living with a terrifying feeling that there is no limit to what Israel can do to us and there is no meaningful consequence for doing it. In Gaza we are told there is a ceasefire, but Israel continues to kill Palestinians, forcibly displace families and restrict aid, fuel and medical supplies while dismantling the humanitarian infrastructure. This is not recovery; it is survival under conditions no civilian population should ever be forced to endure. Our own reporting at Oxfam has shown that 83% of Gaza's population is living below basic humanitarian standards and that one in five families in Gaza are eating only one meal a day, and that around 60% of families in Gaza are struggling to secure enough clean water. In the West Bank, where I live, Israel is also escalating its violence and control. Israeli forces continue to raid communities. They close our roads, expand their military checkpoints and demolish homes. Israeli settlers are attacking Palestinian families. They are stealing and killing livestock. They are destroying entire crops while forcing people off their lands.

This is not random. It is a policy environment in which Israeli impunity has become permission. I want to say this clearly because I am speaking to Ireland today. I do not make simple comparisons between histories, but I do think the Irish people understand what it means when occupation is not only military but political, economic and social, when land movement, food and dignity are controlled by others, and when people are told to endure the unbearable while those responsible speak the language of order, security and law. That history gives Ireland a particular moral clarity, and a responsibility to ensure that what it understands from its own past is not treated as memory only, but as a guide for action today. This is the core issue I want to leave with the members. Humanitarian aid cannot compensate for the absence of political courage. Oxfam and our partners can repair water pipes, distribute hygiene kits and support displaced families, but humanitarian work cannot stop Israeli bombs. It cannot dismantle illegal settlements on stolen land. It cannot end Israel's unlawful occupation. That responsibility belongs to states. This is why Ireland's upcoming Presidency of the Council of the European Union matters so much. Ireland has credibility. It has a voice and an opportunity to help move the EU from expressions of concern to concrete, actual consequences. That means continuing to push for the suspension of the EU-Israeli Association Agreement and convincing other EU states that this is fundamental to European values and leadership. It means a trade ban that includes goods, services and investments. It means ensuring EU aid policy protects principled humanitarian action. Aid must not be instrumentalised or used to make permanent injustice manageable.

After years of atrocities in Gaza, decades of illegal occupation and repeated warnings from humanitarian actors, UN experts and human rights organisations, the question is no longer whether Europe knows. Europe knows. The question is whether Europe is willing to act. If there are no consequences, there is no protection, and if there is no protection, international law becomes a promise made to some people and then denied to others.

I thank the committee for having me today and welcome questions. I appreciate members giving their time to listen.

I thank Ms Khalidi for her remarks. I am just also going to acknowledge Ms Gloria Makahwi, who is here with the Oxfam delegation, along with Mr. Blessed Mhlanga and Dr. Ayanda Mhlongo. We are going to move on to Dóchas, starting with Ms McKenna.

Chairman, Deputies and Senators, thank you for the invitation to discuss EU matters regarding Africa, development co-operation and the multi-annual financial framework. Last July, we discussed the repercussions of development and humanitarian aid cuts with this committee. Sadly, the situation has not improved. OCHA’s global humanitarian overview indicates that more than 239 million people require humanitarian assistance globally; over 117 million people are forcibly displaced; and, quite the sobering statistic, more than one in five children in the world today is living in or fleeing a conflict zone.

Despite rising needs, development assistance is facing a downward spiral. The recently published OECD preliminary development assistance committee, DAC, data for 2025 shows a 23% drop in ODA compared with 2024. This is the largest annual contraction recorded in the history of overseas development assistance. The data also highlights that in 2025, ODA to least developed countries and to sub-Saharan Africa fell by approximately 26%. Humanitarian assistance, which was on a growing curve since 2020, has now contracted for the second consecutive year.

The EU, both its institutions and member states, is now the largest provider of ODA globally. However, there is a worrying trend whereby, for the third consecutive year, EU member states have cut their aid spending, with 17 EU member states cutting their ODA in 2025. These cuts will directly impact those in least developed countries and fragile and conflict-affected states the most.

We are also concerned about the paradigm shift we have seen in the EU’s approach to international partnerships. As Mr. Clarken mentioned, the proposed new global Europe instrument for the next multi-annual financial framework now contains a dual objective. It is now not only an instrument to foster partnerships that contribute to the sustainable development of partner countries but one that also contributes to the strategic interests of the Union.

This signals a significant change in direction for the EU in international development. Poverty reduction is no longer referenced in the objectives of the proposed Global Europe instrument and aid is now more explicitly linked to migration, trade and private investment. The instrument's emphasis on flexibility raises serious concerns about reduced predictability, accountability, transparency and policy coherence.

The EU's Global Gateway strategy, which aims to promote the EU's values and interests abroad, is another area of concern. As large-scale projects roll out across Africa and elsewhere, primarily involving private finance and cross-border infrastructure, the question remains as to what this really means for people and communities on the ground. Civil society - the principal partners in the delivery of development co-operation programmes - is missing from the table in both policy formation and dialogue. The Commission's civil society and local actors' advisory platform has been left out of any governance or co-ordination mechanisms. Meanwhile, the EU has been criticised by the European Court of Auditors and the European Parliament on the lack of oversight and accountability structures for the Global Gateway project. A more transparent and inclusive approach is needed, with multilevel governance accountability mechanisms, improved civil society engagement, and publicly available results of project selection and finance allocation.

This strategy is increasingly considered a principal vehicle for development co-operation. However, it needs to be acknowledged that it is not the best tool to provide for human development or to reach those furthest behind. A dedicated strategy is needed to address human development, just as it is needed to address the needs of states that are fragile or affected by conflict.

Despite the global instability and volatility, Ireland has remained steadfast in its commitment to development co-operation, and to ODA spending that is principled and focused on poverty reduction. This is something the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, reiterated at the meeting of EU development ministers last week. It is important and essential that Ireland continues to be vocal and to demonstrate this leadership across EU Council working groups and ministerial meetings.

In this context, Ireland's Presidency of the Council of the European Union comes at a critical moment. Ireland is well placed to champion a distinctive approach to EU external action grounded in human rights, multilateralism, solidarity, and international partnerships, reflecting the values of our Better World policy. The Presidency offers an opportunity to help to shape the future direction of EU development co-operation and humanitarian action at a time when the EU's long-term external priorities and financing architecture will be decided. Placing values at the core of European policy will not only support enhanced policy coherence across external action but will also elevate the European Union as a reliable partner.

Our recommendations for the forthcoming EU Presidency include championing a values-based EU external action agenda, including meaningful partnership with civil society. We must secure an ambitious and accountable Global Europe instrument that protects the integrity of ODA, prioritises human development in fragile contexts, and strengthens democratic oversight and civil society protection. This includes safeguarding the €200 billion budget, or 10% of the total MFF for Global Europe. We would like Ireland to place conflict prevention, peacebuilding, principled humanitarian action and respect for international law at the centre of the EU's response to global fragility and instability. We want food security and nutrition to be strategic EU priorities through renewed political leadership, sustainable financing, and support for resilient and equitable food systems.

Last, as COP 31 takes place during Ireland's Presidency, we should advance a just and equitable EU climate agenda by increasing adaptation and loss-and-damage finance, supporting a fair transition away from fossil fuels and prioritising the needs of vulnerable communities. We look forward to engaging with the committee on these issues during the next six months. Now is a key moment for Ireland to shape an EU external action agenda that reflects our values. I look forward to the discussion.

I thank Ms McKenna. I invite Mr. Crowley to make his presentation.

Rather than repeat what has already been said, I will briefly touch on the EU's focus on fragility and I will update the remarks that were shared with the committee in recent days to reflect the outcomes from the EU Commission's communication on humanitarian aid that was released in the last couple of hours. The communication is essential because it is the high-level document on the European Union's vision for delivering humanitarian aid and it will inform funding decisions and the allocation of resources going forward.

The EU, as has been said, remains one of the world's largest ODA donors. The EU Council Presidency gives Ireland an opportunity to leverage its record as a principled donor to ensure that the EU's commitment to principled aid is retained now and in the next MFF. The new communication crucially reaffirms the EU's commitment to international humanitarian law, the derived core humanitarian principles and the European consensus on humanitarian aid. These commitments must remain the cornerstone of the EU's approach to humanitarian aid. Importantly, it also makes commitments on continued engagement in fragile contexts, the protection of aid workers, humanitarian diplomacy and flexible multiyear funding. However, as Ms McKenna has mentioned, there are concerns that it places principled humanitarian aid within the broader EU external policy framework. Strong safeguards will be essential to protect the core humanitarian principles that underpin the EU's humanitarian aid allocations.

The communication will be followed by three staff working papers, the most important of which is the staff working paper on the EU's integrated approach to fragility. This paper is important because of the concerns in recent years that the focus of the international partnerships mechanism within the EU on the Global Gateway has resulted in a sustained move away from EU development aid targeting flexible contexts. We have spoken about this before in this committee. The primary purpose of EU development aid has always been, and must continue to be, the reduction and ultimate eradication of poverty, not as a tool for enhancing European trade.

World Bank data for 2024 show that conflict-affected countries are home to more than half of the world's population living in extreme poverty. The OECD report states that sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 18% of the world's population but nearly 67% of the world's extreme poor. This is where the intersection between fragility and poverty is so essential. Concern's experience is that long-term resilience can be built alongside humanitarian response in fragile contexts. In Niger, education in emergency programmes enable children in conflict-affected communities to continue learning. In Afghanistan, sustained engagement with local authorities has supported successful women's empowerment programmes. These experiences show the importance of conflict-sensitive programming, long-term engagement and strong partnerships with local authorities and civil societies in all contexts, but especially in fragile ones.

The EU's integrated approach to fragility can strengthen EU external action by linking humanitarian and development efforts to reduce vulnerability and improve long-term outcomes, but this requires stronger co-ordination across EU institutions and member states, and close consultation with civil society to ensure that context-specific approaches are used to reach those who are furthest behind. All EU external actions, including the Global Gateway, must adopt conflict-sensitive approaches. To address fragility, the EU must ensure that its approach paper adequately considers the humanitarian, development and peace needs of affected communities. It must also ensure that in situations of acute need, priority is given to timely and principled delivery of humanitarian assistance. At a time when global systems and legal protections are under unprecedented strain, the EU must ensure that its external action remains poverty focused and grounded in solidarity, sustainability and partnership.

I thank Mr. Crowley and all the witnesses. We are going to move to member's questions now. Members will have five minutes each. I remind witnesses that five minutes is for the question and the answer. I will go to Deputy Ó Murchú followed by Senator Lynch.

Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach. I apologise for being late. Unfortunately, if we never saw the opening statement or heard any of this, we could probably guess what was going to be said. That is the frightening bit. We are in a world where things certainly have not got any better in the last while. Whether we are talking about the Democratic Republic of the Congo or Sudan, we only have to pay some minimal interest to the news to know the sort of difficulties we are talking about across the board.

There is an element of focus in Ireland, as there should be, on what goes on in Palestine but the circumstances have not got worse. In fairness, it has been stated here explicitly that we have to do whatever we can to highlight, which really means sanctions of the strongest means possible. That obviously means including goods and services regarding the occupied territories Bill and whatever pressure can be brought in relation to the EU-Israel Association Agreement, particularly the trade element. The really frightening piece on that is it was not so much the genocide, the ethnic cleansing in Lebanon or the further building of settlements to destroy any chance of a Palestinian state, but those who went on the Global Sumud Flotilla and the actions of Itamar Ben-Gvir that have probably had a greater impact on an awful lot of European countries. As sad as that is, we must commend people on forcing that particular issue. On some level there is no question that we just need to do this. We can talk in circles. When Mary Manning and those workers in Dunnes Stores made that move, it was not that Dunnes Stores stopping the handling of South African goods was going to have a major impact, but as part of a collective action it did.

This will be the second time I will ask Mr. Crowley the exact same question. We can talk about fragility, poverty, the absolute necessity of taking into account where people are coming from and a focus on previous conflicts, peacebuilding and that piece of history that we have. However, it is a case of how we ensure that the European Union, in a changing world, does not make moves away from what it is right to do regarding the developing world. It is also about ensuring we do not get into a further tailspin in relation to not only the actions of the Trump regime vis-à-vis Iran and support of Israel, etc., but the fact the US pulled any funding and the farcical way it operates in the world. I hate when we ask at committees what the one thing we can do is, but we already know. It is how we ensure we make the best use of this European Presidency. That is about maintaining focus and maintaining money. Mr. Crowley will probably say it a lot more eloquently. It took me far too long to ask what I think is a question.

I thank Deputy Ó Murchú. It is a hugely tricky and difficult issue. If we speak specifically about the global Europe instruments, which I think is the main focus of today, the optimist will say it will give more flexibility, more adaptability and better targeting of needs. The deeper concern is the concern I expressed that it may instrumentalise humanitarian aid to become a mechanism of the delivery of trade and foreign policies rather than being based on humanitarian needs. It depends how it is interpreted and applied. The maintenance of a focus on the fundamental humanitarian principles and on the most neglected context must be retained. We need to be realistic about how much Ireland can achieve in six months, but if it goes in with a commitment to ensure adherence to international humanitarian law, IHL, the fundamental principles and coherence with the consensus on humanitarian aid, all of which underpin the communication, then that will be a strong start.

One of the key things Ireland could do is to retain the global Europe instrument as 10% of the overall multi-annual financial framework, MFF. As it is only 10%, there is a risk that it gets left off the agenda and then can be eroded in time. It is absolutely fundamental we have that envelope for the global Europe instrument because, as Mr. Crowley mentioned, a little bit in the detail now is around key areas such as spending targets and mechanisms. How this is implemented will directly affect the impact it has on least developed countries and fragile and conflict-affected states. Ensuring those targets and poverty reduction are in there is absolutely critical to safeguard the future in terms of development co-operation and the role the EU can play.

I agree with my colleagues on what can be done within the MFF. The Deputy may have missed the start of the discussion. It is also about thinking about the tone of what Ireland can bring, how it can present, how it can set the tone for these discussions and help shift the narrative. There is a real need and want by people across Europe to see a moral leadership and a values-based leadership. We are seeing it in electoral results. We are seeing it in desperation from people who just do not feel that sense. Ireland has rightly earned an opportunity to do this and has done it very successfully in previous presidencies. It has managed to deliver key pieces of negotiations during those times and is considered an honest actor. Let us remember there are like-minded countries that we need to coalesce with to try to shift that narrative and avoid a race to the bottom to become like another bloc we will not mention. That is not what the EU is and it is not who Irish people are. We have an opportunity to help stop that slide and start to change that narrative over this period.

I thank the witnesses for being with us today. A very obvious solution is more money. That is what we are looking for. If there were to be more money, how do we guarantee it is spent both effectively and efficiently and is actually put towards reducing poverty? Every group we have spoken with is calling for further investment but I feel it is lacking actual concrete proposals. There are a lot of general, ambiguous ideas as to what the money should go into, but I would like to hear more specifics in terms of the way spend should be prioritised. While it is easy to say that the problem is money, it is obviously a very difficult thing to resolve when we look at the fact that 17 EU countries cut their ODA budget last year. What role do the witnesses think Ireland can realistically play to build consensus for an increased budget when European fiscal reality is trending the opposite way?

The witnesses also spoke about the global gateway with 60% of projects benefiting European companies. How can Ireland or the EU ensure that the EU is not simply about benefits in Africa and that poverty reduction remains the actual focus? I also have a slight concern that CONCORD and Dóchas want 80% of the EU budget locked into long-term programmable actions. What kind of effect would this have on our flexibility or our ability to deal with sudden catastrophes or crises? Is the answer again just extra money? If it is, I do not feel that is good enough. If an organisation is going to come forward with a proposal for 80% to go into long-term programmable actions, what happens when there is a crisis? These are the questions we have to be thinking of.

In reading the witnesses' reports, another thing I found interesting is the way in which China is viewed more positively in Africa than the EU is. The difference is 60% to 49%. Ireland can play a role but for both Ireland and the EU, how can we ensure that the push for critical raw materials from the EU does not just look like further European resource extraction but is a genuine partnership?

That is a larger question than just what Ireland is doing. The answer must come from European leadership across the Union. How might it be done? It is so easy to be cynical and sceptical and say this is resource extraction. I would welcome comments from any of the witnesses.

I reiterate Ms McKenna's comment that it is not that any of us is asking for more money. In the provisional discussions on the MFF in July last year, the Commission announced an indicative budget of €25 billion for humanitarian aid. The concern is that this is not actually written into the language around the Global Europe instrument. If it is not written in, it can easily be written out. The question is how we ensure the money that has been indicated we will receive is actually received. That is the volume issue.

Second is the best use issue. It depends on what we want to achieve with aid. Wanting to achieve more trade for Europe is one thing. If the aid is supposed to be used to address extreme poverty, that is a very different thing. There is a link with fragility. The most fragile areas in conflict-affected contexts are those with the greatest percentage of poverty, and they are inherently difficult ones in which to work. We need to commit to those countries and to long-term programmes there, not abandon them in the way we feel has been done over the past few years by the EU's development funding. The concern we have is what will happen with the humanitarian funding under the Global Europe instrument if it is not protected and ring-fenced in volume and for purpose and if the aid that is delivered is not substantially effective and efficient.

I am not sure whether we said we are asking for more money per se. What we are trying to show is that the Global Europe instrument as it currently stands, and, as the Senator pointed out, with 60% of research funding benefiting European countries, is, in essence, a competitiveness strategy for Europe. That is okay; it is fine for Europe to have a competitiveness strategy, but maybe it is not okay to rob ODA money to do it. I have no problem with a competitiveness strategy, as I said, but the question is: where is the development strategy? Some people will point to the communication on humanitarian aid. That is part of it for sure but there is a big development gap in the middle.

As we know, there will be 270 meetings during Ireland's Presidency of the EU. The MFF will probably not be concluded during our Presidency. On one level, that is a good thing. If Ireland does not have to broker that big deal, it frees us up to focus on some particular Irish agenda and policy asks. Under the EU's current gender action plan, GAP, III, 85% of funding of new external instruments is supposed to include a gender equality dimension. GAP IV has no such target. At a very basic level, one of the things Ireland could do is try to get a spending target for gender equality into GAP IV and the MFF. We rightly talk about climate and inequality. People in this room understand that gender justice is facing a backlash around the world in a way we will be living with for a very long time. Action in that regard is a big one to consider.

In terms of reform of the Global Gateway strategy, where is the African leadership and where is civil society in the middle of it? Technically, they are supposed to be there in the design by way of the 360-degree approach but no one is talking to the development people while everyone is talking to the business community. In the governance and implementation of Global Gateway, African leadership in the country in which the operation is happening must be centred. Otherwise, it is just a railway to get copper more quickly from the Democratic Republic of the Congo into Europe. We know what that looks like in reality. There are colleagues here who can speak about locally-led development and what that really means.

To reiterate, it is very important to address the fact the gender equality target is missing under GAP IV.

I am conscious of time. Do any of the other witnesses want to speak? Ms McKenna has indicated.

I would just like to build on a point made by Ms McGrath. She mentioned a good example in the 360-degree approach within the Global Gateway strategy, which has the ambition of having a bit more of a rounded approach towards those programmes. The reality, however, is that of 143 blending operations and 41 guarantees, the Commission can show only eight interventions with a 360-degree approach. It is absolutely critical not only that we have targets in place, but that we also have the accountability mechanisms in place to see how this is actually being delivered in practice. If we look at the programmable and non-programmable funding, we see that if the amount of the latter is increased, the risk is that it will go into the competitiveness pot, not into the emergency response or humanitarian pot. That is where we see the biggest risk.

The witnesses are all very welcome. We started off talking about the Cathaoirleach being at the Africa Day event in south Dublin at the weekend. When I put up a post about it on social media, I immediately received a lot of negative responses. At one stage, there were 500 comments, approximately half of which were rather negative and the other half positive. There were bots and people from abroad making basically racist comments. There were questions about why a politician would go to such an event and why we do not have an Ireland day. I pointed out that St. Patrick's Day celebrates a foreigner who was abducted and sold into slavery in Ireland and later returned here and had what some would say was a positive impact on the country. I refer to that just to highlight the context of there being a lot of negativity about immigration. The agenda some of those people have would not include Ireland being involved in development and support for other countries.

I expected there to be a major focus today on the situation in Gaza and the West Bank. I want to focus on Sudan, which is the location of the greatest crisis facing Africa at the moment. Millions of people have been displaced, hundreds of thousands are dead and millions more face the threat of famine. All we have seen from the EU are bland statements about the resilience and courage of the Sudanese people but no real action and no international pressure on those involved. The humanitarian response will always be dangerous and restricted in the context of the extreme violence we have seen in Khartoum and El Fasher. The ability of aid agencies to respond must be desperately limited in the areas where the fighting is so intense. What response would the witnesses expect from the EU to that situation? What type of support is needed as we go forward?

Of course, none of what is happening in Sudan lessens the threat of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda. The cancellation of USAID projects has had an impact on the monitoring of the disease and so on. The current outbreak is rather rare and is not closely understood. What can the EU do to pick up the slack left by the US in terms of aid and, more specifically, epidemic monitoring and prevention? I am using the Ebola outbreak as an example but there is an impact on other epidemics. So far, we have seen travel advisory notices in European countries and people being encouraged to leave the areas affected. It seems the World Health Organization staff have been left on their own there. The first consideration must be an immediate response to the outbreak. Surely some sort of infrastructure could be put together to replace USAID supports and facilitate EU assistance.

The last time the witnesses were here, we talked about tied aid, which is one of the positive things, and the fact the EU is going down the road of tying aid to trade deals, security, migration and so on. Will the witnesses comment on that?

Is the Deputy directing the question at anyone in particular?

No.

I thank the Deputy for the question. Perhaps I will start with the Ebola crisis. It is already a crisis. It is a high public health risk, as classified by the WHO. The latest reports mention over 1,000 suspected cases and over 200 suspected deaths in the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, and the epidemic is already spilling over into Uganda, where there has been one lab-confirmed death and seven lab-confirmed cases. The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Africa CDC, is supporting the response and has identified ten countries that are not yet experiencing the epidemic but are at risk. These include Kenya and Tanzania. Africa has a stronger capacity to respond to the crisis than it did in previous Ebola outbreaks even though this is a new strain demanding a heightened and more complicated response. With the support of the Africa CDC, there is a stronger co-ordination mechanism for responding to the crisis.

The problem is the financing and implementation gaps that remain. What the EU could do is support the countries collectively and individually before any epidemic or cross-border pandemic such as Ebola arises, by supporting national and continental capacity with sustainable, predictable multi-year funding and the transfer of technology and intellectual property so the medical devices, medicines and other medical items can be built and produced on the continent. These are the major and important matters to look into.

We have been alarmed by reports from Sudan about displacement and, linked to that, famine levels and malnutrition in certain regions, notably northern Darfur, that were previously not at risk. This is turning into a protracted crisis, which has been hitting the country for over three years. Oxfam supports displaced people who cross the borders into Chad and South Sudan. We provide life assistance, such as water, food, cash and hygiene kits but, like the rest of the sector, we are facing major, deep funding cuts that hinder our capacity to respond to the crisis. As for what should be done, in addition to a renewed commitment to funding the response, on the political level, the political crisis should be addressed and peace efforts supported in Sudan. This is where we could see the EU decisively contributing to resolving the issue faced by Sudan.

I thank the Deputy for the question. It was great that he saw and posted about the kind of abuse we get on a daily basis. It is an uphill battle. The challenge of the growing anti-aid sentiment across Ireland, the sense it is largely being driven by bots and people from outside the country, and how to address and respond to that was the subject of the meeting with the Minister last week.

I will briefly come back to the Deputy's question about the funding issue. To expand on Ms McKenna's comment about cuts by members of the OECD development assistance committee, DAC. There have been cuts of 35% over three years, not just 21% last year. There is the money that went in 2024 and the projection of the cuts that will impact this year. Delivery and support cannot be sustained with that level of cuts. For a number of years, we have had a large and successful water programme in North Kivu in the DRC, which is the area immediately below Ituri, the epicentre of the Ebola outbreak. Simple education awareness and sustained access to water and bathing facilities are key ways of reducing the incidence or spread of Ebola. Our whole programme was stopped. We are trying now to reorient and reprioritise funding we have and to get agreement for the reallocation of spending. This is why, in response to Senator Lynch's question, getting the indicative allocation of humanitarian aid for the next multi-annual financial framework, MFF, written into the global Europe instruments regulation is fundamentally important. Europe, at least at the Brussels level if not at the level of individual member states, needs to sustain a commitment to aid. Otherwise, we will face more and more crises and be left with more and more people, who previously would have been able to withstand shocks to the system, tipping into crisis because they are not receiving adequate support to allow them to build more resilience.

I will make one small addition to that. Oxfam has worked on Ebola responses over a number of iterations and we have built up a lot of experience. Clearly, the funding issue is fundamental. Ireland's leadership in this space, to its credit, is important. It needs to continue, and Ireland needs to help to influence others in the EU. However, it is also worth mentioning that, as well as the need for support in the DRC and the region to treat people affected and help to contain Ebola, there is a global health concern we should all be interested in and focusing on. We should realise that not doing the right thing more generally in specific locations will have a global impact. I am not saying that is the reason we should do it, but it is certainly another reason that should be considered. When we are trying to challenge narratives and shift thinking in some of the people on the members' social media, for example, it is something worth reflecting on, as well as the other reason to do it, which is to support those who are most vulnerable and most affected.

I thank the witnesses. We are way over time so we will eat into the next session a little, but Deputy Lahart and Senator Stephenson have yet to contribute. I warn them I will keep to the time and I ask them to bear that in mind.

I was fortunate to be at another committee meeting that some of the witnesses attended. I often think of the phrase that when a butterfly flaps its wings in Beijing, it causes an earthquake somewhere else on the planet. It really applies to development aid and the cuts to it.

Purely out of respect for the committee record, because it came up, I will say that politicians know more than most about attacks on social media - I could tell the witnesses three names I was called this week - but we have become inured and immune to it. I do not want to give any publicity to people who say stuff, but I could highlight a post on my social media page from just today, as all of us could. We have become immune to it. However, it is important to say that because we are the kind of people the witnesses are depending on to stand up for those things. Becoming immune to it helps in some way, but I do not think the public has any idea of the ferocity and consistency of it. I just wanted to put that on the record.

I worked in overseas development aid as an adviser to a previous Minister. I say that because I worked for him for ten years and it was my favourite Department. Why? It was not because it felt like a university faculty. It had nothing to do with that. It was because we had specialists. They had not just kind of emerged up through the Civil Service and every Department does have that. It had people contracted in specifically because this is where they felt their vocation was. I say that to assure the witnesses that they are working might and main to ensure that they can influence the Presidency. They have a great and deep sense of responsibility regarding where Ireland lies in relation to that. The ministers are to outline it in the priorities. From the committees in Parliament point of view, we are very much on that track too so that is good news.

The big piece of good news always is that Ireland does not just have a self-interested agenda in any of these countries. That is what possibly what sets us apart - not from everybody. There are people who are members of all different organisations or international organisations who do good work as do we. The value piece is clear but interests are what allows us to pay for the values - to basically stump up the money.

That brings me to the occupied territories Bill because I chair the foreign affairs committee. I thought yesterday was a good news day. It was not the best news day but we are a country that has decided to enact an occupied territories Bill and I think that is inspiring for other countries. Would I like to have seen this go further? The answer is "Yes". Does that create threats for us? Yes it does but yesterday was a step and I think there are other countries that will look at that and will be inspired by that. I know they will. I know it is frustrating that we cannot go further. Nobody needs to tell me about the cruelty of the Netanyahu regime. Just when you think it has reached its limit, it goes further again.

If there is going to be time for a response, one minute and 20 seconds is left.

From my experience, I think the Chinese would make a big virtue of the fact that they do not impose values on their aid. I would like the witnesses to speak to that because my impression is that actually imposing values on aid is a good thing because that at least attempts to protect women's rights and children's rights, although not in the way that USAID used to do when it could not be spent on contraception or on other measures in relation to women's health. It had maybe fundamentalist ties to it. I would like the witnesses to speak specifically to that because there are countries that may not appear to have agendas but not having an agenda is an agenda. It is good to have an agenda with aid. It does not mean it is tied and it does not mean it is related to competitiveness but it does mean that where we would like to see improvements in people's living conditions and the rights of women. For example, the world thinks that Afghanistan is stable because it is stable politically but for a woman in Afghanistan, it has gone back to prehistoric times.

Regarding the Deputy's comments about targeting, we have done a lot of research around Irish attitudes towards ODA. We have seen a trend in terms of the percentage of people in Ireland who are disengaged. It is 18% of the population at the moment but we know that they have an outsized voice. Despite that, we are seeing quite a high level of support for ODA. What we know as well from the research is that it is very much a values and identity piece so Irish people are not necessarily swayed too much by a news article or crisis shocks. It is very much in-built in terms of our values and identity around the importance of development and poverty. Where we see a bit of a knowledge gap is an understanding around the drivers of poverty and this is where it leaves an opening for misinformation and disinformation. That is why I think issues such as global citizenship education, working with schools and informal-formal are vital as part of the tools to counter a lot of the narratives that are out there at the moment that perhaps are not necessarily reflective of the wider Irish view.

On the Chinese piece, for my sins I have been listening to podcasts about Africa recently. In one of them, "Into Africa", they talk all the time about the US and China. As I listen to hour upon hour of this podcast, I think that at some point somebody is going to mention Europe, but they do not. That speaks to the point about increasing irrelevance. One often hears "China makes us an offer we can't refuse; Europe makes us an offer we can't understand" so there is something about the complexity piece. Europe could foreground the African leadership piece. I heard of a very big grant recently from a European foreign ministry. That money is being dispersed through a pan-European institution from a location in Europe. There is something that does not feel exactly right about this. That is why we are saying we cannot do the same as China or the US, and we do not want to do so. The values piece is there. We need to go somewhat further in terms of empowering the people we are interacting with to make Europe attractive. We talk about values but are the values real in terms of what is on the ground? It involves changing how and what we do, asking "what do you need?", and saying "you disperse that money". Sure we will look at it and see that it went to where it was supposed to go but we would not hold on to the purse strings in such an obvious way. We need to differentiate ourselves somewhat from China above and beyond values talk.

It is worth further consideration at some point. That is a very interesting point.

I am very concerned about the competitiveness piece at the EU because it is a deregulation agenda, a race to the bottom and a race to the bottom with China. China does not impose values. What it does impose is ruthless extractivism and a new colonial legacy in terms of rare earth minerals and limited natural resources, which it is pulling from the African continent and the people are not being helped. It is not supporting poverty alleviation, the money is not going to the right places, we are not seeing trickle down, we are not seeing budget support and we are not seeing supports to civil services, state-building supports or civil society. I am really concerned about that. I am really concerned about the instrumentalisation of aid for domestic European policies, particularly when we see this being driven by some of the big member states which have a colonial legacy in Africa and are using the instrumentalisation of this aid for their own purposes. The Cathaoirleach of the foreign affairs committee is right in that Ireland is unique because we do not have that legacy of a colonial past and do not have that history of self-interest so we have a really important role where we can be a different voice in that space in Europe and we need to take advantage of that.

When we talk about this whole global gateway, it is about extracting greater strategic value from aid for Europe. Even that terminology concerns me. Extracting greater strategic value from aid concerns me. How will that change the positive working relationships that some EU member states like Ireland have developed with partner countries in the global south? What will the impact be where we see this switch because it is an existential switch? We overcame years of a really paternalistic and patronising approach to aid with the global south. Irish Aid has been really good at localisation and funding women-led organisations and civil society but we are now going to regress in all of the goals we have achieved. I would love to get witnesses' thoughts on that piece in particular and what on the tied approach to aid - that extractivism - means and will mean for the local economies in the global south. A really good example would be if we said "build a road but do not build the road with your local industry; build it with our goods that you will import from Europe". There are documentaries showing how parts of Africa receive all of our clothes that we do not want in these enormous bales. They go to market, the bale is opened up and people get their clothes so there are no indigenous markets for clothing with the exception of Kitenge. There is no need because they get all the clothes that we send to charity shops that people here do not buy. That is an example but we could then see that on mass scale when it comes to the importation of tar or tires - whatever is being imported for these big projects.

It would be great to get their comments on that.

The biggest risk right now for Europe is to become irrelevant. There has been mention of some of the global powers that are at play and unfortunately these are the ones that are currently defining the rules of the game when it comes to co-operation with Africa. Europe is trying to play this game and follow this lead, and not defining its own rule of its own game, which is rendering it more and more irrelevant to most of civil society and other interest groups. Europe has to take a hard look at itself and ask what kind of relationship it wants to build and what kind of support it wants to bring to the global south and its relationship with majority world countries.

Coming to the Global Gateway, there are many reasons that have been elaborated on as to why it is not taking off in the right direction. The Senator rightly mentioned that it mostly benefits big companies and European companies. Most African companies do not even have the capacity to respond to some of the call for proposals. They are also designed in a way that would not make sense to African companies. Even when they have the capacity, the language is English but it is an English that is not contextualised and understandable from an African perspective. If, as my colleague said, there is nothing wrong in having global competitiveness, and if the development part, which is the most sustainable block of the co-operation, is also addressed, there is nothing wrong in also having market-focused approaches but they need to focus on what will help Africa develop its own markets. No continent can develop if its own small and medium enterprises are not supported to develop. This would be the missing link - doing business.

On the risk in capital, we might not have time but, today, for an African business to access capital is much more expensive than for a European or western company. These are the gaps where the EU has worked before but is progressively retracting to invest in other areas that are not mutually beneficial. That also contributes to making it irrelevant for civil society and for the people of Africa.

It is also incredibly short-sighted. It is an attempt to have a one-way approach to trade and development. A one-way approach is impossible. It cannot work.

What we have been talking about earlier this week is the emergence of Africa as a true partner and as a global force with an enormous population. It will have the youngest population in the world in the coming years and the youngest educated entrepreneurial people who will ultimately come up with the solutions to so many of our problems. If you refuse to invest in that and just look at the short-term extractivist kind of approach to co-operation, ultimately it will damage us all in the long run as well.

I will draw a line there at that point.

I thank Oxfam Ireland, Dóchas and Concern for coming here. I will not name everyone again. We had a very important discussion and there are a lot of important perspectives that will form part of the conclusions that we draw.

We will move into our second session in a few minutes. I will suspend the meeting shortly to allow the witnesses to withdraw.

I will have to step out. Somebody might be willing to take the Chair for ten minutes at the start of the next session. I propose Deputy Seán Crowe. Is that agreed? Agreed. I thank the Deputy.

I also ask that Ms Khalidi stay on the line for the next session, which might be more relevant to her. If Ms Khalidi is happy to do that, I would be very grateful. Is it agreed that Ms Khalidi stay on the line? Agreed. I thank all the witnesses.

In our second public session today, we are joined by representatives from Trócaire, Mr. Séan Farrell, chief executive officer; from Sadaka, the Ireland Palestine Alliance, Ms Marie Crawley, board member; Dr. Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff, former EU representative to the West Bank and Gaza; and from Al-Haq, Mr Shawan Jabarin, general director. They are all very welcome to the committee today. My apologies, I have probably made a mess of their names.

We will now proceed with session B of today's meeting. Again, I will read the privilege note. My apologies, but this is just a formal thing. I will read the note on privilege and some housekeeping matters. Witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable, or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if witnesses' statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative they comply with any such direction.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. I remind members of the constitutional requirements that they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex in order to participate in public meetings. I will not permit a member to participate where they are not adhering to the constitutional requirement. Therefore, any member who attempts to participate outside the precincts will be asked to leave the meeting. In this regard, I ask any member partaking via MS Teams that prior to making their contribution to the meeting they confirm they are on the grounds of the Leinster House complex.

Witnesses will have three minutes to make their opening statements after which we will open up the floor for questions from members. I invite Trócaire to make its opening statement first, followed by Sadaka, Dr. Kühn von Burgsdorff and Mr. Jabarin from Al-Haq.

Can we speak to the order of speakers? Could we take Sadaka first and then Trócaire?

Go ahead.

Great. There is just a more logical sequence to that.

Is that agreed? Agreed. That is no problem.

I thank the Cathaoirleach and members for the opportunity to address the committee today.

The founding principles of the European Union are codified in Article 2 of the EU treaty. They include respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and human rights. Despite this foundation, throughout the decades-long illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine involving ethnic cleansing, annexation, apartheid and, more latterly, genocide, the EU has consistently disregarded its founding principles in its approach to Israel, opting instead for the role of nonchalant bystander. It has effectively enabled the most egregious breaches of international law to be committed by the State of Israel, despite having both the means and legal imperative to do otherwise.

The EU-Israel Association Agreement is the corner-stone of EU-Israel bilateral trade, economic and political co-operation. Its Article 2 establishes that relations between the parties must be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles, defined as an essential element of the bilateral relationship. Long before the commencement of the genocide in Gaza, the conditions to trigger a unilateral suspension of the agreement based on Israel's total disregard for human rights under the rule of law had been met. Since then, the EU Commission has proposed suspension of trade elements of the agreement based on Israel's breaches of international law. These breaches include failure to prevent the crime of genocide, as ordered by the International Court of Justice, ICJ. Despite the Commission's formal proposal that trade-related provisions be suspended, despite Spain, Ireland and Slovenia calling for its suspension and despite the citizen-led initiative with well over a million signatures, the EU association agreement is intact. Not only is it intact, it is thriving and trade is expanding to Israel's benefit.

The EU is Israel's largest trading partner, accounting for 32% of Israel's global trade. In 2024, trading goods amounted to €42.6 billion and increased to €43.3 billion in 2025. These are the two years in which Israel perpetrated the most heinous war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Palestinian people and was put on trial before the ICJ on charges of genocide. This is the timeframe in which the International Criminal Court, ICC, issued arrest warrants for Israel's Prime Minister and minister for defence on the basis of a range of crimes, including the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare and murder. The EU is critically important to Israel, serving as its largest trading partner and primary source of foreign direct investment. It is therefore in a unique position to be a game-changer in response to Israel's persistent breaches of international law. To say the EU's founding principles have never been deployed with regard to Israel is a profound understatement. On the contrary, Israel enjoys a staggering level of preferential treatment.

Ireland's Presidency must confront the gap between the EU's stated principles and values and its practice. The legal findings of the ICJ, UN bodies and the EU's own treaties converge on a single imperative: the EU must cease all forms of recognition, support or complicity in Israel's unlawful actions and take concrete steps to uphold Palestinian self-determination and international law. By doing so, Ireland can ensure the EU's actions align with its stated values, demonstrating that respect for international law is not rhetorical but operational. Ultimately, in the words of the Minister, Deputy McEntee, "without values, none of it matters." Our Presidency must shift the EU dial towards becoming a global defender of human rights and a guardian of the international rules-based order. The time for turning a blind eye to Israel's heinous crimes is long over.

I wish to now introduce my two colleagues who will deliver their statements. I also remind the committee that copies of the report on which we are basing this presentation and series of events are available from the clerk to members of the committee. Mr. Jabarin is the general director of Al-Haq and is one of the world's leading human rights advocates whose lifelong work documenting violations in the occupied Palestinian territory has been instrumental in advancing international accountability.

I thank the Chair and members for allowing us to speak to the committee.

The EU has consistently failed to support Palestine, revealing a grave contradiction within the EU itself. Its professed values of democracy, rule of law and human rights are proven to be selective, partial and hypocritical. Ireland continues to trade in settlement goods and services with Israel as if nothing extraordinary is happening, ignoring the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

Ireland is a sovereign state that has international legal rights and obligations that supersede its EU membership. It must urgently act to uphold its obligations and take action - action which is clearly demanded by the Irish people. Delays and stalling of time costs lives and it is the Palestinian people and children who have paid the price, as Israel continues its genocide with total impunity.

Settlements have increased and expanded. The West Bank is completely fragmented. Palestinians are incarcerated in their villages and towns, surrounded by gates and checkpoints. An expanding network of settler-only roads carves up the territory, adding between 20 km and 30 km to the daily commute. Bands of armed settlers carry out state-sponsored acts of terror, forcing the displacement of Palestinians from their land. Settlers burn Palestinian homes and properties, steal livestock and destroy olive trees. Torture in Israeli detention centres and the adoption of racist death penalty laws shows the degree to which apartheid Israel has institutionalised and normalised the destruction of the Palestinian people. In Gaza, the genocide continues. Gaza has been destroyed. Palestinians live in the rubble among rats, in makeshift shelter and in conditions unfit for human survival. Israel is openly annexing Gaza with expanding yellow and orange lines, as the international community looks away. The establishment of the Board of Peace, disgracefully endorsed by the UN Security Council, denies the inviolable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. It has the Chapter VII mandate and no legitimacy. The EU must act immediately to sanction Israel, dismantle apartheid and to stop the genocide. We call on Ireland to support the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and return. There is no time for delay.

Our next colleague is Dr. Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff, former senior EU diplomat serving in the occupied Palestinian territory whose extensive diplomatic experience offers critical insight into the responsibilities and limitations of EU policy and practice.

It is a great honour for me to speak to the distinguished members of this committee on this very important topic. I am a former EU diplomat. My last posting was as EU representative to Palestine from 2020 to 2023. I am also a member of a small steering team of a group of former European ambassadors, Ministers and senior officials. We were appalled by what we witnessed in Gaza and the West Bank and decided to engage in advocacy work. Starting only last year with a handful of colleagues, our group has grown over the past ten months to more than 450 members, including Prime Ministers, Ministers and senior officials. We have issued eight public statements calling for Europe's leaders to take meaningful and robust measures. The latest was one issued on 6 May requesting the EU to stop Israel from building the E1 settlement.

For decades Israel has pursued the subjugation of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The ICJ considers Israel's ongoing belligerent occupation of Palestinian territory seized in 1967 to be unlawful. Israel's flagrant non-compliance with the Oslo agreements of 1993 and 1995 has significantly undermined the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and a life of dignity and security. In Gaza, Israel's indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks have, since 7 October 2023, killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, the majority of whom were women and children, while more than 172,000 were injured, 43,000 of whom are suffering from permanent, life-changing injuries. Most of Gaza has been reduced to rubble. Those who survived bombs and bullets face hunger, malnutrition, disease and a collapsed health system that was deliberately targeted by Israel. Beleaguered Palestinian residents of Gaza living in inhumane conditions and squeezed into barely 40% of the strip are deprived of adequate humanitarian assistance due to ongoing access restrictions, with UNRWA and international NGOs impeded from providing urgently-needed supplies and services in accordance with their operating mandates. At the same time, the highly controversial US-led Board of Peace plan for Gaza is floundering and failing even to curb Israeli military attacks on Palestinians in Gaza, having caused nearly 900 fatalities in the past seven months since the so-called ceasefire in Gaza.

In the West Bank, violent Israeli settlers, with full military protection by the IDF, have waged a campaign of terror against Palestinian communities. Homes are torched, inhabitants are murdered, families expelled, water sources poisoned, herding animals stolen, olive groves destroyed and land annexed in violation of international law, with more land grabs planned. This includes the pivotal E1 corridor that bisects the West Bank where issuance of Israeli government tenders for 3,400 buildings is imminent. Israel continues to act with total impunity, seriously undermining the two-state solution and a future Palestinian state whose existence is recognised by 157 UN member states. Palestinians remain under sustained assault by an Israeli Government determined to marginalise them and render their lives intolerable, the ultimate goal being to force them out from their lands.

If all this was not bad enough, Israel has recently passed legislation providing for the death penalty for Palestinians it indicts for terrorism-related crimes, with Jewish Israelis de jure exempted. The Israeli Government’s policies and practices violate core EU principles with respect to Palestinians, for whose welfare it remains legally and morally responsible, as the occupying power. The European Union and nearly all of its member states have failed to respond meaningfully to Israel’s egregious, systematic and ongoing breaches of international and European law. No substantive measures have been taken by the EU to pressure Israel to end its brutal assault on Palestinians, to resume vital humanitarian assistance by mainstream providers and to dismantle its illegal occupation of both Gaza and the West Bank. If the EU fails to take an effective stand, member states individually or in groups of like-minded countries must act. While this is welcome in itself, it will not have the full force of EU-wide collective action. The Irish Presidency of the EU is an opportunity not to be missed. Europe, long a champion of human rights and the rule of law, must act now in the name of international law, humanity and justice for the Palestinian people or risk forfeiting its credibility, influence and moral standing in the world. I look forward to an exchange of views and am happy to respond to any queries members may have. I thank them for their attention.

I thank the Chairman, Deputies and Senators for the invitation to be here today. Recently I spent some time in the West Bank with an international church delegation. We were there to look at the experience of communities, particularly across the Jordan valley. As we travelled, we found three different types of villages, mostly Bedouin, across the West Bank. The first were communities that were on the brink of being driven out and were weeks away from being displaced. The second were those that were actually packing up their cars and their few bits and pieces while we were there. One of the bishops I was travelling with asked them where they were going but they had no idea. There had been a ferocious attack on them the night before and they were leaving land that they had lived on for countless generations. The third were villages that were completely empty. We walked through the remains of a burnt mosque.

We walked through the remains of villages where the attacks had happened in the last couple of weeks in order to drive out the Bedouin communities. The key message we took away from the whole visit was that the attacks happening across the West Bank are not isolated, and they are not accidental or led by just a few violent settler groups. They are planned and systematic, and what we are seeing is a clear attempt to annex Palestinian land and lock Palestinians into fragmented enclaves, undermining any opportunity for a two-state solution or the emergence of a Palestinian state.

My colleagues here have talked about the situation in Gaza, as did our colleague from Oxfam in the earlier session. One of the more horrifying of the testimonies we received over the last couple of weeks was from our local partners on the ground in Gaza. It deals with disease outbreaks as the temperatures rise and as communities live in tents on the rubble of their homes, with huge infestations of rats, with medical services collapsed and with sewage systems completely depleted and destroyed. The testimonies describe a situation where life is miserable and partly intolerable.

I agree with our colleagues that there is a real opportunity for Europe through the EU-Israel Association Agreement and clear breaches under Article 2. The agreement is the most powerful tool available for the EU to hold Israel to account. It is interesting that the EU’s own assessment has concluded that Israel is in breach of Article 2. Ireland, Spain and Slovenia have argued for the suspension of the agreement. We believe the Presidency is an opportunity to continue to argue consistently for the suspension of this agreement.

I would like to draw the committee’s attention to the situation in Lebanon. A ceasefire is nominally in place but, really, this exists in name only. It did not provide for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanese territory. The ceasefire agreement includes language that allows Israel to use whatever means it sees possible under the guise of self-defence. It is interesting for the committee to know that since the ceasefire was signed, over 600 people have been killed. We saw more air strikes again last night in southern Lebanon and in the Bekaa Valley. In one attack in March, after the ceasefire, there were 100 air strikes in ten minutes, killing over 300 people in Lebanon.

The EU has a role to play to work for a full and permanent ceasefire that must include the right of return for Lebanese civilians and also impartial investigations that look into violations of international humanitarian law where civilians and civilian infrastructure have been directly targeted.

For Trócaire, the circumstances in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon are not just humanitarian crises but a test of the international system and also, as colleagues have outlined, a test of the EU’s commitment to key principles. We must uphold those principles at a time when they are under attack globally in a way that we have not seen for decades. For the communities we work with in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon, the right of return to their homes in safety and dignity will have to feature as these peace agreements move forward.

We welcome the recent statement from the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade on progressing the occupied territories Bill. However, we believe services should have been included. This is necessary to maintain full compliance with the ICJ advisory opinion, which made no distinction between trade in goods and services. As Ireland prepares to take up the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, there is a particular opportunity for it to show leadership on these issues. I thank the committee.

I thank Mr. Farrell. I remind members that Ms Bushra Khalidi is joining us online from Ramallah in the West Bank, if they want to direct questions to her. Deputy Ó Murchú will lead off. I ask him to try to keep within the time limit.

It will be a first but I will attempt it.

Gabhaim buíochas le gach duine. It is great to have the witnesses here. This is very comprehensive and, unfortunately, it is everything that everyone expects. There is nothing shocking at this point when we talk about Palestine and what the Israelis will do, which is exactly whatever they want to do. The only thing we know for sure is that the Israelis are utterly fixated on breaking the Palestinian people. Benjamin Netanyahu has always been very clear that he does not want to see a Palestinian state.

It is hard to believe the genocidal action, the continued killings in Gaza and the creation of settlements that will absolutely rule out any possibility of a Palestinian state. We see ethnic cleansing in Lebanon, I assume to create a buffer zone. The whole idea of “Greater Israel” gets greater every day.

We know what we can do. We almost bore ourselves talking about the occupied territories Bill. It has to cover both goods and services. To be quite honest, I do not buy the legal advice. I am fairly sure we can get multiple other legal experts who have already given their view that it is possible to cover both goods and services. It was said to me before, in relation to a law being unimplementable or unenforceable, that many laws are not enforceable in every circumstance but that you have them and utilise them to the best end. The idea is that we would put a sanctions package together that is as strong as possible. I accept it would be far better to work alongside others, with qualified majority voting, if we could get it across the line to deal even with the trade element of the EU–Israel Association Agreement. Absolutely disgracefully, Israel is in breach of the human rights conditions within it but it still requires a unanimous vote to get rid of it altogether or qualified majority voting to deal with certain elements of it. Anyway, we are where we are.

On one level, I do not have a question. The fact is that we just need to do whatever we can because the Palestinians are running out of time. I know this has been said almost since the nineties. It is just hard to contemplate what has happened in recent years. There is no shred of cover for the Israelis. They have been getting absolute protection from America. The only hope that we have is that a system of sanctions will build an element of consensus across enough of the world that it actually has an impact, and impacts on America enough that it will speak to the Israelis and say this game is up.

When this happened in South Africa, we saw that it was mine owners and those involved in serious industry who said they needed to get themselves away from existing practices so they could do business. We just need to use whatever leverage is possible. I ask for further commentary because we just have to do it. We cannot just keep talking about this.

The witnesses might like to talk about the issue of services.

I will give the Sadaka position on the occupied territories Bill, if that is helpful. We are incredibly disappointed that the proposal from the Government is that the Bill, in its current iteration, should just include goods. It short-changes the lives of millions of Palestinians in the West Bank, as documented by my colleagues here. There are shocking stories of extreme violence that people live with every day. We heard at a meeting earlier today that 70 children have been killed in the West Bank to date this year.

It was said very well by Mr. Farrell that it is purposeful violence. It is with a view to eroding, removing and annexing, and that is before we talk of the wholesale slaughter.

For us, the key bit is that the current Bill will not bring Ireland into line with international law. The ICJ ruling is very clear that it does not differentiate between goods and services.

Yes.

For the purposes of this committee, the report of the foreign affairs committee, as part of its pre-legislative scrutiny on the Bill, also did not make a distinction between goods and services.

There was all-party support as well.

Absolutely. It advocated for a complete ban - not a partial, selective or politically expedient ban but a complete ban on all goods and services from settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. It is so important. International law is not an à la carte menu from which we can select politically palatable elements. To do what the Government is proposing to do creates a space for impunity. The Bill has provided us with an opportunity to match the strong rhetoric of the Government. The rhetoric has been strong. The Bill was an opportunity to reflect that in meaningful action. It is a missed opportunity and it needs to be amended.

And to give strength to others who might follow.

Absolutely.

Ms Bushra Khalidi is looking to come in from Ramallah.

I cannot echo more what was just said. For Oxfam, the services element really matters because it is directly connected to what we see in our work with Palestinian communities. Settlements are not an abstract legal violation. They are built and expanded through an entire economic system that affects people's daily lives, whether it is access to land, water, movement, livelihoods, homes and basic services. In our programming and our advocacy, we work with these communities whose farmland is cut off by settlement infrastructure, whose water resources are restricted and whose homes and livelihoods are threatened. The system is not only sustained by goods. It is sustained by the services that make settlement expansion viable, including construction, planning, tourism, real estate, finance, insurance, logistics and digital platforms. When we insist on services, it is because a goods-only ban does not match the reality we see on the ground. If you want to avoid contributing to the settlement economy it has to look not only at settlement products but the wider commercial services that enable this dispossession, fragmentation and annexation.

Personally, as a Palestinian, this is not theoretical. It is not something we are reading about in legal text in the ICJ advisory opinion, although exactly as my colleague has said, it does not make that differentiation. It is something that really determines whether families can actually reach their land, whether the communities can stay in their homes, whether, as was mentioned, children grow up surrounded by checkpoints and settler violence, and whether Palestinians have any real future on their own land.

Did Mr. Farrell want to come in? No. We will move to Senator Chris Andrews.

The witnesses are all very welcome. I acknowledge the work Ms Crawley has done since 2009. I remember being in the Sandymount Hotel, I think, at the launch of Sadaka or maybe it was a meeting organised by Sadaka and the work it has done. I remember Phillip and Adnan. It has been incredible over the past 17 years. It was long before it became genocidal, although that was probably the direction it was going.

What is happening in Gaza and in a lot of other countries is so dark. It is frankly depressing. It is very hard to find the words to sum up how upsetting it is to see what is happening to the Palestinian people, and to the Lebanese and Iranians. It is horrendous what is happening. It is very dark but where I find the light is that in the Palestinian people, there is determination and resilience. The dignity they have shown through all of this has been incredible. That puts the demand on us to stand up for the ordinary Palestinian people because it is about all of us. What is happening to Palestine could and may happen to all of us at some stage. It is really important that we push and fight against the destruction of international law by the big powers. It is like a return to the jungle where power, strength and money determine everything.

The way the Government has handled the occupied territories Bill has really undermined the belief of ordinary members of the public in government, democracy and international law. It creates an apathy and people just get fed up about it. It is the same with the association agreement. People lose faith. We had a presentation in relation to support for the EU, which is on a downward trend. I firmly believe that is because people feel the EU is not standing up for ordinary people and the people it should be standing up for, like those in Palestine, Gaza and the West Bank.

I heard the Taoiseach claim that Ireland is leading the way in support of Palestine. All I can say is if that is what he believes, the bar must be very low because there is a lot more Ireland could do. Recently, there has been this idea that Ben-Gvir is a kind of extremist outlier and that he is somehow different from the state. The reality is that what Ben-Gvir is doing and has been doing, the Israeli state has been doing for 19 or 20 years and decades before that. Ben-Gvir is not an outlier. The Israeli state is corrupt and is, in my view, a cancer in the world.

The two-state solution was mentioned. Is a two-state solution, in the witnesses' view, possible now? On a practical note, there was a request for heavy machinery to be able to recover the bodies of those killed. Has that machinery become available so that people can bury their loved ones?

I will make a few comments. The Israelis keep the bodies of the people, even those who were tortured and killed, in their hands. They keep them in their prisons. They also keep the bodies of more than 16 children in their hands. That is for years, not just the past two, three or four years. This is part of their policy and system. They used to say, at the time they are caught, that this is for bargaining with Hamas if it arrests or takes any Israeli soldiers. Now there is not one soldier - nothing. This also shows the level of their justice system when it comes to Palestine and Palestinians. At the same time, they say they have common values with the EU and democracies in Europe. This is, I think, part of the myth. That is the case.

Another thing is that no one is taking action against Israel. It has not paid any price. All the time, the EU and other states used to provide it with carrots but no stick ever since 1948 until today. This has also strengthened the culture of impunity. It feels it is above international law, EU law or any law around the world. The people are watching what is going on, for instance, and the reaction to Russia. It is clear. People who are watching know and understand what is going on. There is nothing left for what is called the two-state solution.

Even if there is no possibility for the two-state solution, you have to make it if you believe in self-determination for people. If it is one, two or three states, that is what the Palestinians called for. The EU and even the third-state parties in the EU, including Ireland, missed the opportunity a long time ago when they did not take any actions. I came here many times and cried to the officials, parliamentarians or others.

I used to hear good things and good words and there is sympathy - I have no doubt of that - but the question is about actions. In Ireland's hands now at the EU level the association agreement should be dissolved, not suspended, and there should be other things like an embargo. Why not push for this, for instance? Ireland is a friendly country. Victims are looking at it. People lost their hope and the question is how to maintain in victims' minds hope and the importance of international law, democracies and all these things and all these principles.

Okay. Does Ms Khalidi want to come in?

Thank you so much. I just wanted to say something on a two-state solution. I want to link the two separate questions which are very much connected. The two-state solution is not disappearing because of a lack of diplomatic language. It is being dismantled by the facts on the ground. It is not that time is running out. What I see every single day in my life as I try to just travel from Ramallah to Jerusalem is that a supposedly 20-minute drive has become a drive that takes between two and four hours. The two-state solution is being dismantled by those facts on the ground. In the West Bank that means, like I said, settlement expansion, all the annexation measures, the settler violence, the demolitions, the movement restrictions and the fragmentation of Palestinian land. In Gaza, it means the mass destruction, the forcible displacement, the restricted access and the continued blocking of basic tools needed for recovery like heavy machinery. Heavy machinery is a very concrete example of this. Some machinery has entered through private, commercial, informal channels but that is not what we are asking for and it does not answer the need. Gaza does not need a few isolated pieces of equipment coming in through ad hoc arrangements. Gaza needs systematic, predictable, large-scale access for rubble clearance, water and sanitation repair, waste management, road clearance, shelter repair and the restoration of the most basic services. That distinction really matters because if machinery only enters through private channels it can be expensive, fragmented and selective, and is inaccessible to the municipalities, civil defence teams or humanitarian actors who need it the most. It does not allow planning. It does not allow public recovery. It does not allow people to rebuild with dignity.

When we ask whether a two-state solution is still possible we have to ask possible under what conditions, exactly. If Gaza is kept in ruins, if the most basic recovery equipment is restricted, if people cannot return and rebuild and if the West Bank is clogged up by settlements and there is annexation, then it is impossible. States cannot keep saying they support Palestinian self-determination while allowing the material basis for it to be destroyed. For Oxfam, this is why accountability and access are inseparable. We need full humanitarian access; the entry of-----

-----of reconstruction materials and medical supplies; an end to settlement expansion and annexation; and real measures that stop economic support to the occupation. Otherwise the two-state solution becomes the slogan repeated while the reality needed to make it possible is completely erased.

Okay, thank you. I need to move on to the next set of questions. I call Senator Mullen.

Go raibh míle maith agat, a Chathaoirligh. I welcome all the witnesses and thank them for being here. They are ploughing a very difficult furrow when one considers the overall geopolitical state of things. I would like to direct my first question to Mr. Farrell because I know him and I know the good work Trócaire has been doing for many years. How is the aid situation? I assume Trócaire is involved in delivering aid directly and on the ground. How is it managing that in the restricted situation? There is a fatalistic sense I think we are all tempted to have that it is impossible to get change any time soon in a way that will really deliver, especially given the US Administration in particular - and not just the current one but successive administrations, it is fair to say - but also how the EU is hopelessly divided. There are particular historical reasons other countries take a very different approach to Ireland so it really feels like we are stuck in the mud, to some degree in terms of making the kind of progress that would take away the impunity with which the settlers in the occupied territories especially are doing what they do.

I was at a commemoration of the Irish Famine in Portumna recently and I was thinking about things that happened in my own place, namely, the Ballinlass evictions when Mrs. Gerrard evicted people from the land. There are images and depictions from that era of the desolation, devastation and confusion of children whose houses had just been knocked down. One can only imagine the experience of bewilderment of children in particular when the house they have been growing up in and their forbears grew up in is just taken away and their olive trees taken away. That kind of image presents itself to those of us looking in from the outside. I asked what the practical situation was with aid. I mentioned the apparently hopeless vista because I often wonder whether it affects the willingness of people in Ireland to donate due to them wondering whether there is any way it will get to anywhere near the point of pain.

I have a second question about that geopolitical situation. Am I right in thinking it is not just Trump that is the problem? Is it worse under the Trump Administration? What is going on? Is the impunity even greater? Has the aggressive activity of the settlers increased markedly or has this been going on for a generation? What is the pattern there? I have a final question for any witness who wishes to take it. One might take the view, without in any way subtracting from people's efforts, that what might happen under the occupied territories Bill is in the end symbolic compared with the much greater power that a suspension - I think we would have to go one step at a time - of the EU-Israel Association Agreement would have. However, one wonders whether even that would have the capacity to change facts on the ground given the extent to which the US and Israel are in lockstep on whatever Israel chooses to do right now.

Will the witnesses help me by addressing those points? I am sorry it was all a bit scattergun.

I apologise again that I had to step out. I will call Mr. Farrell and then Ms Khalidi, as well as anybody else who wants to come in.

I would like to hear from Ms Crawley, my old friend from UCG, as well.

I thank the Senator. To take a number of the questions on aid flows, especially into Gaza, in the aftermath of the horrendous destruction of Gaza the aid blockades were almost complete. It was extremely difficult for our local organisations we work with to get any aid in. All of it was blocked and a lot of it was blocked in the guise of dual use. Things like tents were being stopped because they had poles that could be described as dual use, so it was extremely difficult to get aid in. As time has gone on, more is getting in. What always struck us as unusual is that goods flowing in for commercial sale flowed much more quickly than humanitarian aid and markets were functioning before humanitarian convoys could deliver aid to the most needy, those who had lost their homes, etc. I guess there was money to be made in arrangements for companies working outside and inside Gaza. However, we still have not seen the levels of humanitarian aid necessary to support a population where there is huge displacement, where hundreds of thousands of people are living on the rubble of their homes and where there are still massive infrastructure problems with housing, sewerage, schools and hospitals. The hospitals of Gaza have largely been decimated. There are huge problems to come with that.

The Senator asked whether it is getting worse. Having been in the West Bank and Gaza over a long number of years and being back this time, I think it is getting infinitely worse.

The rate of dispossession of Palestinian communities that I saw this year has exploded. Even the way it is happening now is infinitely worse than what I would have seen three or four years ago. Three or four years ago, it was slow encroachment. It was sometimes using the legal system and not allowing Palestinians, for example, to build on land. Now, it is outward use of settler violence backed up by the IDF followed by the deliberate displacement of communities across the board. Under the Trump Administration, there has been a message that this can happen with impunity. We can see it on the ground happening at a ferocious rate. Our colleague in Ramallah talked about the facts changing on the ground. We are now seeing Palestinians forced into small enclaves across the West Bank. That is what is happening at a huge rate and pace.

Is that about getting as much territory for a greater Israel, but taking on as little of the population as possible to keep the demographic balance? Is that part of the politics of this?

The politics of it is that what happened in Gaza is going to happen in the West Bank, which is to take a large population and corral them into a dense urban environment and try then to manage the security issues or whatever that will arise from that. When we see what is happening in the West Bank, it is hard not to conclude, with the expansion of settlements and the pushing of Palestinian communities now to the margins, that these communities are going to corral and be corralled in dense urban settlements in the West Bank with Israeli settlers basically taking all the land around them. It is hard not to conclude that is the plan.

On Senator Mullen's last question, it is very difficult to retain a lot of hope in the situation when you travel there, meet with communities and see what is happening. Senator Andrews's question was the same. Where do we get the hope in the work that we do? The hope exists in the local organisations that we work with which continue to strive and deliver in incredibly trying and difficult circumstances. If a Palestinian organisation is working in Gaza today and responding to the needs of that community, which are horrendously difficult not just in terms of the humanitarian needs but also, for example, with the local organisations we support that work on gender-based violence in Gaza, it is extremely difficult. Those organisations, and their determination and commitment to continue to try to do the best they can with almost nothing, are incredibly admirable.

Working across the West Bank, with the Palestinian organisations we fund and the Israeli human rights organisations Trócaire works with in Israel, what gives them and me hope is the work they continue to do in a context where the space is massively decreasing. If I look at the Israeli human rights organisations that we work with, the space for their work to oppose the actions of the Israeli Government has shrunk over the past two years because the war is not just a physical war on the ground. It is also a war of making sure there is no opposition to the occupation and what is happening. For the organisations that we work with - Al-Haq is here – and for other organisations like that, the only hope we can have is that they continue to deliver work even in the most trying of circumstances.

Before I bring in the next witness, I will bring in Ms Khalidi. Is that okay?

You are the boss.

Does Ms Khalidi wish to come in online?

I wish to answer a couple of those questions. They were important ones. On the piece on access and how we are managing, the honest answer is that we are managing because Palestinian staff, partners and communities are doing extraordinary work under impossible conditions, but we cannot confuse survival with a functioning humanitarian response. We have had to constantly adapt over the past three years working through local partners, having to shift routes and having to prioritise different needs at different times, whether it is water, sanitation or food security. We are trying to keep supply chains moving while we are being deregistered. We are trying to respond to needs that are changing by the day. We are managing, but we are managing inside a system that should not exist. The fact that humanitarian actors continue to operate should not be used as proof that access is adequate. I wanted to make that clear. It just means people are doing everything they can despite restrictions that are preventing a response at the scale that is required.

I will say a couple of things on the geopolitical questions and the willingness to donate. We still see enormous solidarity from the public, including in Ireland. People are horrified by what they are seeing and they want to help. Of course, there is a real risk of despair because when people see that aid is repeatedly blocked and when they see the same images of destruction and displacement month after month, some are going to ask what difference their donation makes. That is why we have to be very clear. Donations matter enormously. They keep our local partners going. They support water, sanitation and the most basic of services. Truly, they help communities survive. However, donations cannot be asked to substitute for political action. The answer cannot be that the public gives more while governments continue to allow the policies creating the crisis to continue. Humanitarian aid can save lives, but it cannot end impunity. That requires political decisions.

On the geopolitical point, I agree that this is not about one US Administration or the other. The impunity here is structural and has been built over decades. Successive US Administrations have provided Israel with diplomatic, military and political cover. Europe has often been divided or unwilling to impose consequences. That said, some administrations maybe make the green light more explicit. That matters because when there is permissive language, and consequences such as continued arms and trade relationships, settler and settlement institutions understand that they can act with confidence.

On the occupied territories Bill, we would not overclaim what one national bloc can do. Of course, suspending the trade-related parts of the EU-Israel Association Agreement would be a stronger EU-level measure. Arms restrictions, restrictive measures and wider accountability measures are essential, but I would not dismiss the Bill as merely symbolic. This Bill matters because it creates a legal and political precedent. We need that precedent. It says that Ireland is not going to allow its market to sustain illegal settlements. It shifts the conversation from serious concern to actual consequence. If it includes goods and services, it begins to address the wider economic ecosystem that has made this impunity viable. It is not only products from shelves, but also tourism and real estate.

I see these measures as complementary, not competing. Ireland should move nationally wherever it can. It should push at EU level wherever it must. The occupied territories Bill is not the whole answer, but it can be part of breaking the architecture of impunity. Impunity is not abstract. It is sustained through trade, arms, finance and diplomatic protection. To be very honest, as Palestinians, we do not have the luxury of fatalism. Fatalism is understandable, but it cannot become policy. Every delay is lived by people here on the ground in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the communities that are facing settler violence, displacement and annexation. The role of states like Ireland is to lead, create precedent and make it harder for others to keep hiding behind division.

I thank Ms. Khalidi very much. I will give Senator Higgins a chance to come in, but I want to give other witnesses time first. Is Senator Higgins under time pressure?

I have to collect my child from crèche. Perhaps I could add my question in-----

Yes. I will give everybody an opportunity to respond.

-----and then I will read back the transcript and the answers, if that is okay?

Absolutely.

First, I echo the point made regarding the occupied territories Bill. I am a co-sponsor of the-----

Keep it to the question or we will be here all day.

I will. I am a co-sponsor of the original occupied territories Bill. With regard to the current Bill, there is frustration with the removal of the services piece. The opinion of the International Court of Justice is very clear about preventing trade or investment relations that contribute to the illegal situation. What we have heard today makes this vivid. The fact is that this is not a technicality or a small supply chain issue; it is literally a matter of annexation. If there are companies affected by the fact that they are trading on illegally occupied land or employed in services in relation to illegally occupied land, they should not be doing so. It is appropriate they are marked. The fact that those companies are affected is not a rationale for not acting. Rather, it is a rationale for acting. It shows that we have a chance to send that higher precedent. I am worried that, by putting in legislation that is less ambitious than what Spain has done, we lower the precedent and standards that have been set. The witnesses might comment on that.

Another piece within national control is the area of dual-use goods. Mr. Farrell spoke about the use of dual-use goods, such as water to oxygen tanks and so forth. While dual-use goods come under that collective EU umbrella, Ireland still holds national control. Ireland has had a sixfold increase in its dual-use exports to Israel. This includes technologies that we know are part of the machinery of war and occupation. I ask the witnesses to comment around that dual-use piece.

When I came into this meeting initially, I thought it was a wider-frame discussion regarding EU-African relations. What damage is being done to the European Union within its wider international relationships, including its relationships with African countries and others, when such countries see a double standard applied? They see trade in Israeli bonds continuing to be facilitated by Ireland and a failure to act, even against the most recent egregious death penalty measure put forward. They see this permissive language, which was mentioned earlier. Not only is there an absence of action, but there is this permissive language. First, how damaging is that on the European Union’s ability to mediate? Second, many of the witnesses work in many areas of conflict. What ripple effect has the continued erosion of the idea of the Geneva Convention had?

I am very concerned that the EU sends an observer to the Board of Peace. This ties in with the UNRWA piece. How important is it that Ireland presses for Europe and others to reassert the UN role? I am not just talking about the Security Council and the General Assembly alone but, rather, UN bodies such as UNRWA, UNICEF, as well as the role of UN aid instead of the tied-aid or utilitarian approach to aid that we have seen. How important is it to focus on strengthening those institutions that are working?

The difficulty of carrying out this work was mentioned, as well as how the human rights advocate space is shrinking. Alongside that, we see the journalism space shrinking. Some €1 billion has now been allocated for enhanced reputational work by Israel. The space for the truth and narratives we are getting is shrinking. We know that. Is it also being overtaken by a well-resourced, new press? Most recently, tools were designed to train AI to provide a different framing on Israel. That is something I read. Perhaps the witnesses could comment on not just the shrinking of the space, but what is filling that space where human rights voices have been shrunk. I apologise that I have to step out but I will listen back to the answers with great interest.

The ambassador is next. I am sorry I cut him off. I will give everyone a chance to come back in.

Members have given me a tall order. I will try to respond to two or three of them. I hope to be intelligible. I will come back to Senator Higgins as well.

I will work my way backwards, starting with the question on the damage to the EU. The EU is in jeopardy of losing its reputation as a leading soft power when it comes to the normative framework established since the Second World War. The EU is founded on these very principles and values, and each member state had to abide by them in order to become an EU member state. They are not optional. Rather, they are the conditions for becoming an EU member state. By applying a double standard, in the perception of the majority of our partners and allies in the world, according to the political convenience as to whether to engage or apply international law, we undermine our influence and the very framework we seek to uphold. Not only do we violate international law but we violate the Lisbon treaty. We violate national legislation.

This does not go unnoticed throughout the world. I am still in contact with my former colleagues in the embassies of the EU member states. They report a worrying decline of acceptance of the EU, pledging allegiance to international law and democratic principles and human rights. How can we lecture anyone in the global south, Africa, Asia, Middle East or Latin America? How can we ask them not to be dictatorial or to stop persecuting dissidents if we are seen as applying a discretionary measure when it comes to a perceived ally that violates the very principles of EU association partnerships? We are seen as doing nothing about it. The soft power is severely degraded.

Our partnerships with the south are also being affected. For instance, how can we insist on corporate social governance, environmental and human rights standards, procurement principles and good governance principles in our trade agreements if we are not seen as being the standard bearer of these very principles? It affects our relationships with countries across the world and our ability to develop strategic autonomy in security, economy and, of course, defence. Norms and interests are intrinsically linked. That is an important aspect.

Let me now turn to the question of the US. I am not talking about various US Administrations because colleagues already spoke in that regard. We have to be wary of the fact that the current populace in the US is shifting dramatically to a more pro-Palestinian view. This is a first in US and Israeli history. A total of 75% of Democratic voters view Israel very critically, especially the youth. Increasingly, we see splits among the MAGA movement and Republicans on this issue. They are saying that what Trump is doing is a betrayal of the electoral pledge he made to put America first. This is already affecting Democratic primaries and certain candidates. Do not underestimate this generational shift. For us in Europe, we must be wary and concerned about this, in a positive sense, and see how we can use it. Netanyahu may be seen as a liability rather than an asset.

We are all affected by the recent crisis because of the unlawful and illegitimate attack on Iran, which came about very much at the insistence of Mr. Netanyahu cheerleading Trump into that unwanted, unnecessary and illegal war. It is costing both us and the Americans dearly, with rising gas prices and supply chain problems. This may have domestic costs that are tangible for the electoral constituencies in the US. This is something we have to be conscious of in order to see it in the proper context. The US is changing. We need to change as well.

With regard to the Senator’s question on the EU fragmentation and Ireland’s role, as I said in my opening statement, Ireland has a great opportunity in this regard. It can be a cheerleader and standard bearer of this normative framework. Ireland can match its rhetoric and the values it projects. Ireland can talk the talk and walk the walk.

In order to create momentum at the EU, and in order to be in compliance with the legal obligations under international and European law, nothing should stop Ireland from taking a number of measures. In August last year, we issued a statement to the European leaders where we listed nine measures an individual member state could take under its national legislation. I am not going to read all of this right now, but I am happy to share it with the committee.

That would be great.

The information might be of interest to the committee because it provides a list of actions Ireland can take. This would probably create more momentum and then, as the agenda for the Irish Presidency is set, Ireland could decide what things to table. On 15 June, we have a Foreign Affairs Council meeting. It will be outside the Irish Presidency but a couple of foreign ministries have asked High Representative Kallas to table a proposal to sanction the extremist ministers Ben-Gvir, Smotrich and others. A couple of member states have asked the Commission to prepare legislation on banning trade with settlements. So, as Ms Bushra Khalidi said, nothing stops Ireland or any other member state from banning trade with settlements, preferably goods and services of course, to be in compliance with the ruling. In parallel, countries can very much urge the European Union to act accordingly. It is a step-by-step approach.

This is all I wanted to say. I rest my case for the time being, but I am happy to answer more questions.

I thank Dr. Kühn von Burgsdorff very much. I am afraid we are against the clock in terms of the room, never mind the meeting itself. I am happy to let anybody else in who wants to come in on that.

What we are facing is not an ordinary occupation, but a colonial, racist and genocidal regime. When genocide happened, Ireland and others in Europe and elsewhere did not act according to their obligations under the convention. It is about prevention - preventing a crime in time. The Israelis showed that they would commit this crime since the beginning. It was clear from their statements. Much later, the ICJ said that it was a plausible genocide but no actions were taken against Israel. Most of the leaders of the EU went to Israel to say it was self-defence. Where is this under international law? Where does it say that the occupation can be considered as self-defence but it is not the same for the people under the occupation? That is one thing. It is not technical.

Members do not need to hear us and to follow our statements and reports about what is going on today. They can follow what the Israelis said themselves. They are proud to do this, kill this, destroy this. Today, they call it the Gaza doctrine. The Israelis reach this level. What is going on now in Lebanon is that the Israeli officials say we have to follow the Gaza doctrine. They set it as a precedent - something that they follow in destroying Palestinian society. They are engineering Palestinian society psychologically, economically and socially when they destroy the Palestinian refugee camps and push people outside as homeless, just outside of their place, and destroy their houses. This is what they do these days when they put us in caves. They are caging us. They are trying to build in the consciousness of Palestinians that they have no future in this area. They are targeting our existence. That is the case. This is the reality. It is also the fact on the ground.

I suggest that, some time, the committee would invite the Irish ambassador in Palestine to share with it what he sees and thinks when he moves in the West Bank, Jerusalem and elsewhere. It is a very important thing for him to testify before the committee. All of the EU ambassadors or representatives in Palestine should do the same. I am sure that not one of them has been invited to testify before a parliamentary committee. This is something they can do. I have no doubt they write the right things. They express what they feel and what they see, but there is nothing from the capitals. I am sure that they ignore all of these things because there is no one.

The last point is that Palestine is a test for international law and for all of the laws and principles that the West and others speak about. We believe strongly in all of these principles and norms but the international system failed. The EU failed - 100%. Ireland also failed to act according to its obligation under international law.

Time flies. People think they can do things just by force. This is the message sent by the Israelis and also by the Americans. There is no place for peaceful ways. There is no place for the rule of law. There is only a place for force. When you ask the reason, they say they can solve this and that by force. This is a dangerous thing. This is risky, not just for Palestinians, but for the rest of the world. We must act now, push for a real agenda to take actions, impose sanctions and dissolve the association agreement. We must do everything possible. Ireland can start acting according to the advisory opinion of the ICJ in July 2024, when it said that this occupation was illegal and that all measures had to be taken by third state parties to end it. What is going on now is deepening the colonisation and the occupation. This is what the Israelis want to do. It is something that I hope will not happen but massacres will happen against Palestinians, not just killing one, two or three a day in the villages. Massacres will happen. We are sounding the alarm that this is the case. Palestinians feel there is no protection provided to them by anyone. Now they are thinking how to defend themselves, their families and their houses. The Israelis have left nothing for them except to think about how they can defend themselves.

That is the case now with Palestine. It is so gloomy, but this is the reality these days, and it needs actions, not just words of condemnation here and there. We know that people are sympathetic to all of these things that are happening to Palestinians. They have sympathy for Palestinians. They are speaking out here, but no action has been taken. It is time for action.

I thank Mr. Jabarin. I will not leave Ms Crawley out. If it is okay, I will give her the last word.

I will pick up on a couple of points but I will make it brief. I understand the pressure on the space.

Reference was made earlier to the occupied territories Bill being a starting point. It is shocking that, 59 years after an illegal occupation, we are talking of starting points in terms of either unilateral action or EU action against Israel for its breaches of international law. We should not be at starting points. We should be at a much more advanced position at this stage. The suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement is only a starting point. We need to be very clear about that. As a colleague reminded us at an earlier meeting today, the suspension of that agreement will only be the equivalent of a 4% tariff on Israeli goods. As my colleague, Mr. Jabarin, has pointed out, what we need is a full trade embargo against the State of Israel. Nothing less than that is adequate. Compare that to the EU response against Russia over its annexation of Ukraine. Russian troops moved into Ukraine on 24 February 2022, yet a full suite of sanctions was announced the previous day - 23 February. The EU announced the full suite of sanctions it was going to put in place.

On 26 April this year, we announced the 20th package of sanctions the EU is enforcing against Russia in response to Ukraine. We have not announced even one sanction against the State of Israel in response to its almost 60-year illegal occupation of Palestine. Of course, this dual standard has affected the credibility of the European Union. It has affected it profoundly.

We have come to the committee today because of the opportunity the EU Presidency presents for Ireland. Now is our opportunity to match the rhetoric with the type of actions we have so easily deployed against Russia, quite rightly, because of its invasion of Ukraine. The EU has sanctions in place against 50 countries. It is high time we added Israel to that list.

I thank Ms Crawley. I cannot disagree with any of that. I thank all the witnesses. We have lost Ms Khalidi from the line but she was with us for the earlier session as well, so I am grateful to her for holding on. Mr. Farrell, chief executive of Trócaire, thank you for your time. Dr. Kühn von Burgsdorff, I appreciate your perspective as well. Mr. Shawan Jabarin, your lived experience is hugely important. Ms Crawley, here on behalf of Sadaka, I appreciate the time you have given us.

I am genuinely sorry we have had to cut this short. There is huge demand for the committee rooms and we have gone right up against the line. Thank you all for your time. Thanks to members for their patience. We will suspend for two minutes to allow the witnesses to leave. If members would not mind holding on, we will deal quickly with private business then.