Richard Boyd Barrett
Question:11. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach To ask the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on EU and international affairs will next meet. [41216/23]
View answerTuesday, 24 October 2023
Questions (11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
Bernard Durkan
Question:12. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on EU and international affairs will next meet. [45021/23]
View answer
Paul Murphy
Question:13. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on EU and international affairs will next meet. [43878/23]
View answer
Mick Barry
Question:14. Deputy Mick Barry asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on EU and international affairs will next meet. [45264/23]
View answer
Ruairí Ó Murchú
Question:15. Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on EU and international affairs will next meet. [46321/23]
View answerOral answers (11 contributions)
I propose to take Questions Nos. 11 to 15, inclusive, together.
The Cabinet committee on EU and international affairs oversees the implementation of programme for Government commitments and considers policy matters in relation to the EU and international issues. The committee met most recently on 2 October, when it reflected on the attendance of meetings at the UN high level week in September and looked ahead to meetings of the European political community and of the European Council that took place in Granada on 4, 5 and 6 October as well as the meeting of the European Council which will take place on 26 and 27 October. It was expected that the Cabinet committee would meet last week but that meeting was cancelled on account of the flooding in Cork. It is expected that the committee will meet again before December.
I have made it very clear that it is quite shameful what people like Ursula von der Leyen and some of the European Union states have done to essentially give carte blanche to Israel to commit war crimes against the people of Gaza, and indeed their failure to hold that regime to account over many years for its crimes against the Palestinian people.
I will refer to a particularly disturbing case that has come to light in that regard in the last couple of days. My office was contacted yesterday by Courtney Carey who was sacked yesterday from Wix, which is an Israeli-owned IT company based in Grand Canal Dock that does website building. They sacked her because she had put posts online - according to her, they were quite mild - in which she essentially laid the responsibility for the current violence in Gaza on the shoulders of the Israeli Government for its apartheid policies, its occupation and its siege of Gaza. She was sacked for that, with the chief operating officer of the company apparently telling her that to say those things was tantamount to justifying terrorism. Very worryingly, Ms Carey reports that since 7 October, the company, through inner channels to the employees, was telling them it would be in their interests to put up pro-Israeli content and posts in company updates and so on. She has said, disturbingly, that they were told it would be best only to show some of those posts to people who looked European. She has now lost her job. This is shocking behaviour. I understand - perhaps the Taoiseach could check - that this company is supported by IDA Ireland. Will the Taoiseach condemn what Wix has done to Courtney Carey and investigate this treatment of an employee?
Might it be possible to set up an international forum on site and close to the zones of conflict where it could be regarded as the go-to authority to relay grievances on both sides? We must acknowledge that the incursion into Israel by Hamas two weeks ago was not necessarily a friendly gesture, as some would try to paint it nowadays. The retaliation is not a friendly gesture, as some would try to paint it. That cannot go on. The tit-for-tat response to one act of violence with another and another cannot continue. There will be no solution unless it is recognised that both sides have a problem. Both sides have a right to exist. The Palestinian Authority has a right to exist without necessarily relying on Hamas to set the stage for it. Similarly, the Israeli people have a right to exist as well. There are people who reject that argument and say that there should be only one authority in the whole area. Experience has shown in the last number of years that this has not been possible and that we are back to square one. I reiterate the need for an authoritative body that can adjudicate, listen to the grievances, and at least deal with them in a way that would bring about a semblance of useful results.
The nightmare in Gaza is worsening day after day, hour after hour. There is no water, no food, no fuel for the hospitals, no electricity and no basics. The bombs are raining down at an increasing intensity. In the last 24 hours more than 700 people have been killed, bringing the total to over 5,000, including more than 2,000 children. It is really a sick joke to have 15 trucks entering Gaza when on a regular day 500 trucks would be going in. The starvation policies of Israel continue. This may be about to get even worse. It may be unimaginable to people that it could be worse but it could be even worse. There are huge numbers of Israeli troops on the border getting ready for a ground invasion. The defence minister has told them that they will soon see Gaza from the inside. This would mean not thousands of civilian casualties, but tens of thousands. It would potentially mean a new Nakba, a new displacement, forcing people out of their homes permanently - or attempting to do it permanently - for more than 1 million people if not more than 2 million people.
I do not know if the Taoiseach remembers but 20 March 2003 was known as Day X. It was the day the war on Iraq started. People right across the country, in schools, colleges and in work, walked out in protest and went to the city centre to protest. We will need to do the same again if there is a ground invasion and head to the Israeli Embassy and demand the ambassador is expelled.
I hope the Taoiseach is going to speak out against the clampdown on public expressions of support for the Palestinian people that we have seen in certain EU countries when he is at the European Council this week. I am talking, for example, about the banning of pro-Palestinian protests in France and Germany and the use of tear gas and water cannon against protestors in France. Of course, the Taoiseach cannot credibly oppose censorship and repression in other countries unless he does it when it happens in this country too. Courtney Carey was a customer care team lead at Wix, an Israeli tech company that employs 500 people here in Dublin. She commented online about what she described correctly as the indiscriminate bombing of Gaza. She was fired from her job for doing so. I am calling on the Irish Congress of Trade Unions to speak out on this case. It could have a chilling effect on thousands of workers in this country who wish to speak out against a brutal war. It also creates a terrible precedent whereby workers can be fired for expressing a political point of view. I would also like to hear from the Taoiseach on this. I would like to hear him condemn this firing and to comment on this case here today.
The Israeli onslaught on Gaza continues. What Israel offers is bombs and starvation. We have all heard the figures at this stage - 5,791 Palestinians killed, including 2,360 children, and 704 Palestinians killed in the last 24 hours. There is nothing else this can be called but a war crime and forced displacement. It can be called ethnic cleansing. We dread to think what a land invasion will look like. We dread to think about the disparity of power we are dealing with. Many of us have called out what Ursula von der Leyen and others have done in greenlighting these types of war crimes. I have asked the Taoiseach before about what engagements we intend to have. If we have allies we can deal with, we need to push them. We also need to push ourselves forward more as regards condemnation. If we cannot get agreement at a European level, we will need to get some agreement, perhaps at a reduced level, among those allies on calling out what are Israeli war crimes and the fear of what is to come. We need to ensure there is no element of greenlighting provided by any element of the European Union. I ask the Taoiseach to detail the pushback that has happened in relation to those who seem to be a lot more pro-Israeli than this State.
I thank the Deputies for their comments. It is important, when we engage with our European partners in the 27 member states of the European Union, that we always try to understand the positions they are coming from. We may disagree, we may criticise each other and we may compromise but shouting and pointing the finger really does not work in international affairs or in forums such as the European Council. We have to understand where different countries are coming from. Every country sees the situation in the Middle East through its own historical experience. We certainly do. That is one of the many reasons we identify with the Palestinian people and support their quest for statehood, because we see certain parallels between what Ireland experienced and what they experience. We also need to understand that other European countries might see it differently, given the horrendous treatment of Jewish people in Europe for centuries, culminating in the events of the 1930s and 1940s and causing so many to flee to Israel, their ancestral homeland. We also have to bear in mind that many countries, much more recently, have been at the receiving end of very serious Islamic terrorism, killing people on their streets. The attack on the music festival in Israel was not the first Islamic terrorist attack on a music event. It has happened in France, in Britain and other places. We need to understand that other people will see things in a somewhat different way than we would. If we cannot do that, we are not going to persuade anyone of anything. We will just be taking an isolated position. What I will do on Thursday and Friday, as I have done in the past two weeks, is bring the Irish perspective to the table to say that Europe cannot have double standards when it comes to human rights. We cannot say one thing about President Putin's actions in Ukraine and then take a totally different position when it comes to violations of international law happening in other places.
We also need to consider the impact on Ukraine. Ireland and a number of countries have done a lot of work to say to countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia that what is happening in Ukraine is an imperialist war. It is Russia trying to re-establish its old empire and it should be seen as that. That is why we ask people in Latin America, Africa and Asia to stand with Ukraine in defending its independence, its democracy and its sovereignty. That gets a lot harder when people in the global south see different standards being applied. We have to think not just of what is right but also of Europe's interests in terms of victory in Ukraine and how Russia will exploit what is happening in the Middle East to pursue its imperialist course. That is a big concern I have and a point I will strongly be making in Brussels during the week.
Some of the Deputies raised the case of a former employee of Wix. I am not aware of the case. I do not know the details or the facts. Before coming to any judgment on anything or condemning anyone, I would always wish to know the facts and hear all sides of any case. Under Irish employment law, it is not okay to dismiss somebody because of their political views. I believe that to be wrong and would encourage the woman concerned to seek advice, whether from the WRC, a trade union or a solicitor, because it may well constitute wrongful dismissal and there are remedies that would then apply. Of course, all the facts would need to be known before we know what the outcome will be.
Deputy Durkan talked about the need for one authoritative body. In a world that worked better, the United Nations would be such a body. Unfortunately, we do not have a body that is trusted, accepted and respected by everyone. That is the real dilemma and the real shame in the situation.
On the question of expelling ambassadors and closing embassies, I will say the same thing I said when people called for the Russian ambassador to be expelled and the Russian Embassy to be closed. Even countries at war have diplomatic relations, have diplomats, have ambassadors and sometimes have embassies.
You expelled Russian diplomats though.
We need to keep channels of communication open. It would be of no advantage to Palestine to throw out the Israeli ambassador. There would be no advantage to Ukraine in throwing out the Russian ambassador-----
You expelled Russian diplomats.
-----but it would cut us off. We need to be able to talk to countries, particularly countries where we have citizens and people, because we need to make sure they are protected.