Mick Barry
Question:7. Deputy Mick Barry asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on Government co-ordination will next meet. [49678/23]
View answerTuesday, 21 November 2023
Questions (7, 8, 9)
Richard Boyd Barrett
Question:8. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on Government co-ordination will next meet. [50902/23]
View answer
Paul Murphy
Question:9. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on Government co-ordination will next meet. [50905/23]
View answerOral answers (22 contributions)
I propose to take Questions Nos. 7 to 9, inclusive, together.
The Cabinet committee on Government co-ordination generally meets in advance of Government meetings. Its next meeting is scheduled for Monday, 27 November. I am a member of the committee alongside the Tánaiste, the leader of the Green Party, the Secretary General to the Government, my chief of staff and the chief of staff for the Tánaiste. The leader of the Green Party also sits in on meetings. The committee reviews the agenda of Government meetings, discusses political priorities and reviews the activity of Cabinet meetings. I should say the chiefs of staff of the three leaders sit in the meetings, but the three leaders are all members.
Some 19 femicides have taken place in this State since the murder of Ashling Murphy. I put it to the Taoiseach that if that number of people had been killed by a paramilitary organisation, the State would rightly be moving mountains to try and achieve change, but male violence against women seems to bring forth a less urgent response. GREVIO - I hope I pronounced it correctly - the Council of Europe group of experts on violence against women, reported recently and made some serious criticisms of the Government and the State in this regard. I do not have time to detail them all but I will mention some. It said that data collection was insufficient, disjointed and incomparable on this issue. It said that the legal obligation on victims to disclose their therapy and counselling notes would discourage victims of violence; pointed to the need for more financial support by the State of women's rights organisations, particularly for multi-annual funding; criticised the frequent application of lenient sentences and the tendency to rely on suspended or conditional sentences for acts of violence against women; and pointed out that it seemed to be the case that offences of violence against women were considered offences of lower social danger. These are serious criticisms. I would like the Taoiseach to comment on them and on the issue in a general sense.
It is clear from the Taoiseach's response earlier during Leaders' Questions that he is not even aware of the Government's legal obligations under the genocide convention to act to prevent genocide, incitement to genocide or complicity with genocide. I strongly urge him to check on the Government's obligations under the convention because they are onerous, and with very good reason. The convention was established in 1948 after the Holocaust to ensure genocides never happen again. I can assure the Taoiseach that all the experts, including many Jewish experts on the Holocaust, are saying what Israel is doing in Gaza fits the definition of genocide and that the world is failing in its obligation to prevent it.
I will also ask about hostages in Gaza. There are 2.3 million hostages and there have been for 16 years, whose entry into and exit from Gaza is controlled by Israel. That is a war crime by the way. On Irish hostages specifically, although some have left and some of their families have arrived home, Israel is not putting some of them on the list. Two of them are Zak Hania, who people will have seen on television in recent weeks describing the horror of how his family has been driven out of northern Gaza and then bombed in southern Gaza, and Mohammed Hania. There are others, as far as I know. Israel is holding them hostage. My question to the Taoiseach relates to them. What is the Government doing to get the Irish hostages still being held by Israel released? Israel has absolutely no right to hold on to people, to control their exit or entry. They are Irish citizens. It has no right to control the exit and entry of anyone in Gaza under international law, but it certainly has no right to prevent Irish citizens leaving the horror that is Gaza.
I will read a sentence from the programme for Government, which states "The ambition of this Government is to provide each citizen with accessible and affordable healthcare, housing, education, childcare and disability services". That ambition is not being met. The State is failing fundamentally to meet the rights of many people in this State but in particular, the rights of children with additional needs.
I will raise a particular case, which illustrates the point. Rocco is four years old. He is in junior infants. He likes going to school but he is currently only able to go to school for nine or ten hours per week because no special needs assistant, SNA, has been allocated to him. Rocco is suspected of having ADHD or ASD or both but there is no official diagnosis. He is on a long waiting list for an assessment of needs. The principal of his school applied for a minimum of four SNAs and got one. Rocco alone needs a full-time SNA, but the school got one for the entire school. The result is that the school told him it would love to have him at school full time but it cannot possibly provide for his needs. Therefore, he has been told he can only go to school for nine or ten hours per week. His right to an education is being denied. Similarly the school tried to get a psychological assessment for him through NEPS and was told that no psychologist has been allocated for the local area, so he was not able to get it.
It is absolutely scandalous that a four-year-old boy in this country is being failed in such as way by the State. What is the Government going to do about it?
It is a huge issue that Israel has never been called out or held to account for its many crimes. There is a particular right-wing regime, run by Benjamin Netanyahu, which has the worst elements of the settler movement. We are talking about annexation, apartheid and the idea of a greater Israel right at the heart of the Israeli Government that is absolutely committed to there being no Palestinian state or self-government of any real and meaningful sort. Disgraceful cover has been provided by both America and the EU.
The Taoiseach has said that the EU cannot continue to trade with Israel as normal on the basis of Israel engaging in what is genocidal slaughter and war crimes. How does he plan to deal with this as regards the Israel-EU Association Agreement? How does he intends to do this on the basis of where many of the European countries stand at the minute? Ireland may have to go it alone and take those first steps. My party has been very clear on referral to the ICC, but there are particular things that we can do ourselves. There is the Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill 2022, which I asked the Taoiseach about previously. He referred to the Minister for Finance, but it is something we need to deal with. We cannot invest in companies that are involved in the occupied territories. The occupied territories Bill has to be looked at, and beyond that, recognising the state of Palestine. Often, the Taoiseach and many others have spoken about the fact that there is a particular history in Germany and other countries as regards the genocidal crimes that were carried out during the Second World War in Sobibor, Treblinka and Auschwitz. The fact is that it is a fairly new phenomenon. In 1973, when the Arab armies attacked Israel and Israel asked for help from many European countries, it was refused because they were obviously more worried about oil at that stage. When Nasser engaged German rocket scientists and when the German Government was asked to assist Israel, there was a refusal at that point in time. This is a relatively new phenomenon and there are huge relationships between many European governments, including the German Government, on a security and business basis. Unfortunately, that is some of the call. It is about how we address it.
Deputy Barry raised the issue of gender-based violence, violence against women and femicide, in particular. As I have said previously, I believe we face an epidemic of violence women not just in Ireland, but across the world. As the Deputy said, there have been approximately 20 murders since the killing of Ashling Murphy. By comparison, this year so far, thankfully, we have only had one murder related to so-called gangland violence related to organised crime. One is one too many, but when it comes to the murder of women by men, the figure is closer to 20. In some ways, that puts in perspective how serious this issue is and how we need to be serious, as a country and a Government, in combating domestic and gender-based violence, and that is what we are doing. This is a major priority for Government. I do not think any Minister before the Minister, Deputy McEntee, has prioritised this in the way that she has. There are tougher sentences, new offences, including very specific ones, for example, relating to strangulation, dedicated trained gardaí, special victims units in every region, new women's refuges and safe houses being established all over the country, changes to the law around consent in particular, and public information campaigns on all of those issues, including on image-sharing and so on. A huge amount of work is being done by the Government, led by the Minister for Justice, on this really important issue.
In reply to Deputy Boyd Barrett, I will certainly seek advice and get a note on our obligations under the genocide convention. I did so on the International Criminal Court, when he raised the issue a couple of weeks ago. What he said did not turn out to be legally correct. I will certainly check it out. It is not helpful to get into a debate about what constitutes genocide and what does not.
It is in the convention.
I do not think it helps.
It is in the convention.
The Deputy mentioned the Holocaust, or Shoah, being a genocide. A total of 6 million people were killed by the Nazis, and they would have killed another 6 million people if they could. I know that there are active debates around the Famine and the treatment of indigenous populations in America and Australia. If people want to use words like "genocide" and "apartheid", I am not going to dispute that, but that does not bring us anywhere or achieves anything. What this is about is making sure that-----
Would the Taoiseach say the same about the Nazis?
-----we have a ceasefire, that the killing stops and that the hostages can be released-----
That is an amazing statement.
-----so that we can get aid into Gaza. Those are the things that are most important.
Listen to what the Israeli Government officials are saying.
I am happy to answer the questions, but it is clear that when the Deputy does not hear exactly what he wants to hear, he shouts you down. I have kind of lost my-----
I am not shouting the Taoiseach down.
I lost my train of thought in that regard.
I am sorry.
What is clear is that what the Palestinian people have faced for 75 years is dispossession, the loss of their lands and being made into refugees. They have not got the level of support that they should have from the international community to date. The most important thing now is that we secure a ceasefire so that the violence and killing stops, aid can get into Gaza and hostages can get out. The only solution - and I know the Deputies disagree with this - is a two-state solution. If the two peoples that inhabit that area are not able to live together, it is better that they live in separate states. Both of those states-----
They are able to live together.
-----need to be viable and need to be secure.
With regard to Irish citizens who are in Gaza, almost all who want to leave and their dependants are now out, or at least the majority are. We are working on a few further cases. We engage with the Israeli, Egyptian and Jordanian authorities, and others, on this. I know there are people who want us to expel the Israeli ambassador. Being able to talk to the Israeli ambassador at least gave us someone to talk to when it came to getting our citizens out of Gaza. I want to acknowledge that, and the work of the Egyptians and the Jordanians in that regard.
The individual case of Rocco was raised by Deputy Murphy. I am very sorry to hear about the case, but it is not something I can comment on without knowing all the details. Certainly, if the Deputy wants to pass those on with permission from his family to make representations on his behalf, I would be happy to do that.
On the Israel-EU Association Agreement and the human rights clause, the EU-Israel Association Council is an important forum for raising all matters of mutual interest. This includes areas where the EU and Israel disagree. At the association council in October of last year, the EU clearly restated its position that all agreements between the State of Israel and the EU must unequivocally and explicitly indicate their inapplicability to the territories occupied by Israel in 1967. We have been consistently vocal in ensuring the application of this policy across all sectors of co-operation. The association council provides a platform for the EU to deliver, where necessary, clear collective messages on issues of concern, including with regard to human rights and international law. As Deputies will be aware, trade is an EU competence and we cannot take unilateral actions on trade or trade sanctions. As I have said previously, sanctions only work when they are done on a multilateral basis. The whole point of sanctions is that they should do more harm to the country being sanctioned than the one imposing the sanctions.