International Developments: Statements Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-06 ============================================================ Alice-Mary Higgins (IND), National University of Ireland I want to begin by quoting from an interview given by the director general of the International Red Cross, Mr. Pierre Krähenbühl, who was visiting Ireland this week. He stated: When we see the atrocities committed in Ukraine, Sudan, Yemen, Israel and Gaza, it’s understandable that public trust in the effectiveness of humanitarian law is shaken. It’s often breached, but when it’s respected, it saves lives ... That may seem insufficient – but it’s vital. Humanitarian law exists to remind us that we don’t need a catastrophe on the scale of the Second World War to come to our senses. That war led to a wave of treaties: the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the genocide convention, the Geneva Conventions, and the refugee convention... All of these treaties, all of these promises we made to each other as humanity, came in the period between 1945 and 1951. They set a frame on the idea that we should proceed together as humanity, approach things differently and use a different set of tools, learning not just from the Second World War but also from millennia of might-is-right thinking, colonialism and empire-building. Seán Lemass spoke about how important it was for Ireland, not just from a moral point of view but also in terms of its interests as a small nation, to support the strength of the UN. Despite this, I hear it casually thrown around that the UN is failing, and this is said by people who are failing to uphold the UN principles. They say it is regrettable when in fact the UN is us. We are part of that, and Ireland has been an above-the-line, incredibly strong voice in this regard. We heard in the Minister of State’s speech that Ireland remains committed to upholding the UN Charter and the rules and principles, working together with like-minded partners. We actually need to work together with everybody, as required by our being part of the UN, and not just work with a few select countries that we may also happen to have business interests with, or our European partners. We must work with everybody, and that is what being part of the UN means. Reference is made to upholding and defending the system and to international law, which we say should be paramount, but what are we doing? We are not doing what we are calling for. In the Minister of State’s speech, he called for clarity on international law and said we should press Europe for concrete actions, but in that same speech there was almost a contribution to the sanewashing we are seeing. I refer to the line about the repression, which all of us have condemned. Some of us, for months and months, have been calling out the repression of Iran’s citizens. The Minister of State’s next remark was that this repression was immediately followed by the action of the US, as if there were some connection between the two. Then a reference was made to strikes by Iran and Israel. These are illegal strikes. There is an unwillingness to name illegality when it comes from a country where we have interests at play. We hear about values and that values must be central, but I also hear the phrase "values and interests" as if we are going to trade them against each other, thinking about our interests now and then talking a little about values. Of course, countries have interests, but if values are values they have to be the outside frame. We need to be serving these. Of course, we can pursue Ireland’s interests, but we need to pursue them within a frame of values. When there are interests that work against the kinds of values we espouse, not just for ourselves but also for humanity as a whole, we need to be willing to challenge and rethink them. We have not found that. Factually, we have not enacted the occupied territories Bill, despite that we heard about international law being so important and despite the direct obligation placed on us and reminded of us in that International Court of Justice ruling. It is in the preamble of the Government's own Bill which it has not progressed. We have been asked by everybody about when it is progressing. I would like an answer to that. I would like an answer to whether Ireland is going to attend a major event. There is a new International Committee of the Red Cross, ICRC, initiative on humanitarian law which Ireland is a signatory to. Will the Government be attending the event in December to gather on that? Will Ireland be pressing for actual action in relation to the International Criminal Court? Europe has a blocking mechanism that it has not used to protect that key instrument of international law in the ICC. Will we be taking a stand? Sadly, not to point to the Minister of State, one of the Government parties, Fine Gael, as a member of the European People's Party, EPP, blocked a debate on the new death penalty law that says you can be killed if you are from a particular ethnicity but not from another. The debate on it that was meant to happen in the European Parliament was blocked. It was blocked by a vote of the EPP. These are real questions. We talk about wanting to encourage others in Europe, but the fact is we did encourage others in Europe to act and they did. Spain and Slovenia acted. They passed their versions of the occupied territories Bill. They have delivered an arms embargo where Ireland - a neutral country - has not delivered an arms embargo. Others are acting. We cannot hide behind it. We need to face up to the real concrete actions we can take. Again, what will we do about the fact of dual use goods - the technologies of war? Ireland has had an almost six-fold increase in our exports of dual use technologies to Israel during the period of the war. These are "concrete actions". That is the phrase from the Minister of State's own speech. What concrete actions will Ireland be taking in relation to showing our seriousness about international law and leading on it? On the area of disarmament, we are very proud of our role in nuclear disarmament, which is something that is maybe worth remembering in the current moment, and in leading the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. We are very proud of our role in the global ban on cluster munitions. Yet, the Government seems unwilling to criticise our fellow European countries, which are now leaving the cluster munition and landmine conventions, and the European Commission, which is directing money towards the purchase and development of cluster bombs. If we are serious about Ireland's role as a champion in the place where we have credibility, let us stand up for the treaties we negotiated and let us give leadership on things like autonomous weapons, which need a new treaty to ban them. We hear about cybersecurity. Let us be very real and frank that it is not simply Russian actors and stealth actors. Some of the very large tech corporations and their leadership have been very open about their international political agendas. They have campaigned very openly on it. In many cases, they are being identified as a risk in different European countries and situations. Is Ireland going to be key in our role as a data regulator? That is where we can be on tech regulation. That is what need, not an end to our neutrality and not the removal of our triple lock, especially in a climate where we are seeing direct bullying of countries to participate in illegal wars of interests. That is not the time for Ireland to remove our safeguard in terms of the triple lock. It is time for Ireland to double down on international law and to step up to the plate in the things that we can and should do. --- 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/seanad/2026-05-06/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:54+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-06