Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions Dail Éireann — 2026-01-22 ============================================================ Cian O'Callaghan (SD), Dublin Bay North Donald Trump's Board of Peace was billed as a body that would oversee governance and reconstruction in Gaza. However, its proposed charter does not even mention Gaza. Instead it gives a broad mandate to resolve global conflicts. Given the list of people who have signalled they will join it is clear the outfit should be renamed the board of autocrats and war criminals. Included in their number are Netanyahu, Putin and Lukashenko. To highlight the absurdity of this travesty, Netanyahu is unable to attend a signing ceremony for the Board of Peace today because as an indicted war criminal he fears being arrested if he turns up in Davos. As more and more concerning details emerge about Trump's Board of Peace one thing is clear, which is that this has little to do with peace in Gaza and everything to do with destroying the UN and making the world less secure and safe. For that reason a number of European countries have already said they will not be signing up. Among their number are Sweden, Norway, France, Slovenia and now the UK but incredibly the Tánaiste's Government is still apparently mulling over whether or not it should sign up. This begs the question of whether there is any outrage perpetrated by Trump that the Government is willing to take a strong and principled stand on. The Tánaiste's Government's failure to rule out joining Trump's gang of war criminals is just the latest example of failing to live up to its words. On Sunday the Taoiseach strongly hinted the occupied territories Bill was dead in the water. He defended the inexcusable delay in enacting this supposedly priority legislation. He effectively ruled out services being included in the Bill if it moves forward and he stressed the Government was pivoting more to the peace process approach in Gaza citing, incredibly, the creation of Trump's Board of Peace. The Taoiseach also highlighted our continued support for the UN and UNRWA, which I strongly agree with. However, this week the Israeli Government razed an UNRWA facility to the ground in the occupied territories. This was an utterly outrageous act. Israel is still murdering Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank with complete impunity. Donald Trump is trying to herald in a new era of chaos, division and adversity. We need to stand firm against Trump as he seeks to legitimise war criminals. Will the Tánaiste categorically rule out any involvement in Trump's so-called Board of Peace? Does this Government have any intention of enacting the occupied territories Bill? --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-22/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:32+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-01-22