I second the proposal made by Senator Darragh O'Brien on the Irish aviation superannuation scheme, which is nothing short of a disgrace. Senators Darragh O'Brien and Thomas Byrne and I, among others, have raised this issue many times in the House, trying to get Members on the opposite side to see the injustice behind it. It is the first legislation brought through to destroy the rights of private workers' pensions. We are now seeing the impact of what it means - unfair cuts across the board and particularly outrageous cuts for deferred members of the airline scheme.

It is disgraceful.

How would any Member feel if his or her pension was cut by 60% just as he or she approached pension age? These are people who worked for a long time in tough jobs and who paid their pension contributions into a private scheme and now they are being cut by 60%. It is an absolute disgracem but it is not too late to stop it. We will push this issue again with the Minister for Social Protection during the debate on the social welfare and pensions Bill. I appeal to everybody on the opposite side to look at this issue again. Much of the information they are being given is misinformation as they will have seen from the e-mails sent back to them correcting misstatements made by various Ministers about the issue.

I call on the Leader to schedule a debate in the House on the need for Ireland to recognise the Palestinian state. As Members will be aware, the Swedish Government gave diplomatic recognition to the Palestinian state earlier this week. The British House of Commons approved a backbench motion in favour of recognising Palestine. I think Ireland should have recognised Palestine decades ago, but certainly when the PLO first agreed to recognise Israel. It is particularly important in the aftermath of Israel's latest assault on Gaza that the international community sends out a clear message of support for the Palestinian people and for their right to self-determination and reaffirms our absolute disgust at Israel's continued decision to wilfully ignore for decades UN resolutions calling on it to end its illegal occupation of Palestine. As a country we have always led on this issue. We have led in terms of supporting the Palestinian people and lobbying on their behalf internationally. Unfortunately, in the midst of Israel's latest assault on Gaza, that did not happen as our Government was silent and hid behind the European Union. I hope that in this case, since two of our EU partners have decided to recognise Palestine, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade will show some courage on this issue and stand up and promote what is right internationally and not hide behind the European Union. Two other countries have had no difficulty in unilaterally recognising the state of Palestine. It would be an important symbolic move to restate our support for Palestine and our support for two states, the states of Palestine and Israel, living together, but everybody needs to be on the same page. It is ridiculous to hear Israeli speakers say it would be wrong to have unilateral recognition of Palestine when in the aftermath of a ceasefire in Gaza, after it had left ruination, murder and carnage behind, it started to build more settlements and did everything it could to undermine a two state solution. At the very least, the tiniest symbolic move we can make is to stand with the Palestinian people, row in behind our Swedish and UK colleagues and recognise the Palestinian state and do everything we can to help bring it about.