Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-03-18
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Richard Boyd Barrett (PBP), Dún Laoghaire

Yesterday, Joseph Kent, who was the director of national counterterrorism in the United States and a senior official in the American Administration, resigned over Donald Trump’s war against Iran. In his letter of resignation, he stated that “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation” and attempts to justify the war were lies. He described the war as one manufactured by Israel.
That war, since Trump and the Israeli regime commenced it, has claimed the lives of more than 3,000 innocent Iranian people, including 160 schoolgirls who were wiped out in one attack. In Lebanon, 900 people have been murdered by the Israelis. As we speak, Beirut is being bombed to bits in one of the worst reigns of death and destruction inflicted by Israel on the people of Lebanon for a very long time. Almost 800,000 people have been displaced and there are now real fears that we are going to see a repeat of the genocidal horrors that we have seen in Gaza for the past two years happening in southern Lebanon. As if all that death, destruction and horror being visited on people in Iran and Lebanon and the genocide in Gaza is not enough, every single working person in this country and across the world is now paying a direct economic price from their pocket with the cost of home heating oil, petrol and other fuel having gone up, all as a result of Trump and Israel's war. I repeat that Israel is a regime that is in the dock for genocide and in the International Criminal Court. The Taoiseach of this country sat beside Donald Trump yesterday, handed him a bowl of shamrock and celebrated our national day with this warmonger even though, as Taoiseach, he has repeatedly claimed that this country is committed to international law. Yet, not a single word of criticism of the flagrant murderous breaches of international law in which Trump and Israel are engaged. At one point, I thought he was going to say it when he said we cannot have rogue regimes possessing nuclear weapons. I thought he was talking about Israel, which, of course, has nuclear weapons and will not even sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, or about the United States, the only country in the world that has ever used them and which has launched this illegal war. But no, our Taoiseach was leaning into the justification that Trump has used to justify this murderous war. How can the Minister possibly stand over the Taoiseach's failure to condemn the flagrant breaches of international law and the illegal war in the White House yesterday and continue to-----

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-03-18/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:45+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-18