Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-22
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Simon Harris (FG), Wicklow

Unlike some governments around the world I do not stand up and single-handedly make decisions and announce them without engagement with colleagues. My personal view and the view of Government colleagues is that we cannot see any scenario in which Ireland can participate in the so-called Board of Peace as currently constructed. Of course, it would be a very different situation were we back to where the UN was on 17 November in terms of countries genuinely coming together in a board to genuinely try to help move phase 2 of a resolution to the horrific conflict and indeed genocide we have seen in Gaza. Process does matter. I do not want to be argumentative on this but we heard calls in this House that the Government should introduce retaliatory tariffs and hit the Trump administration.
Thank God we did not take that advice. We worked through the process with our European colleagues and we managed to get to a situation where additional tariffs were not imposed and managed to calm down the economic situation, so process matters. Allowing the Government the opportunity to sit down with our European colleagues to discuss and tease through a European response to global issues is sometimes a prudent thing to do.

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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