Post-European Council Meeting: Statements
Dail Éireann — 2022-07-13
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Richard Boyd Barrett (PBP), Dún Laoghaire

My questions follow on from what I said earlier. How is it acceptable that people with Irish passports, who are Irish citizens and who seek to enter Palestine or Israel, do not have those passports recognised by the Israeli authorities because they also have Palestinian family connections? That is apartheid. Let us be clear: it is racism that is informing that policy. It is a clear apartheid, racist policy, not just directed against Palestinians within occupied Palestine, but directed now against Irish citizens. They get privileged access and a waiver, and they do not require a visa coming into this country, and we allow that to happen. How can that happen when they treat Irish citizens like that going into Palestine?
Second, are war crimes and crimes against humanity somehow less requiring of accountability if they happen in Europe rather than in Palestine or Yemen? That would seem to be the inevitable conclusion one draws from the Minister of State's attitude.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2022-07-13/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:50:59+00:00
Sitting date: 2022-07-13