Trade Promotion
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-21
============================================================

Helen McEntee (FG), Meath East

My focus and priority this week have been ensuring the safety of our citizens who have been on board the flotilla. I am pleased to say that they are now on buses on the way to the airport and that our officials are on their way to the airport, if they are not already there, to assist and support them. We have been strong in condemning the actions of the Israeli Government. As I said earlier, the way in which we can respond effectively and send a very clear message to the Israeli Government that this is not acceptable, and that not just Ireland but the EU as a whole will not accept this kind of behaviour, is by collectively agreeing to suspend the trade elements of the EU-Israel association agreement or indeed the association agreement itself. We should also propose new sanctions that would prohibit trade with Israel in the occupied territories or with settlers in the occupied territories. I have been working on this for some time to try to build a consensus. We need to make sure that this comes to a vote as soon as possible to allow us to respond in that strong collective way.
Like others, I have been looking at the response on the international stage as well. There has been global condemnation of the actions by the individual minister. Again this is symptomatic of a government that continues to take these types of actions, whether it is the reintroduction of the death penalty, public prosecutions and subsequently executions that they are discussing or the consistent blocking of humanitarian aid getting to innocent civilians in Gaza who are really suffering and see no end in sight.
To that effect, at every Foreign Affairs Council meeting I have been at, I have specifically raised the need for more humanitarian aid to be let in. When I travelled to Egypt and to the Gaza crossing in January of this year, my main focus was to meet with those who are delivering the aid to talk to them about the challenges they are facing. It is very clear that blockages have been put in their way every day. The truck heights allowed on one day change the next day and then they have to offload. The types of products allowed in one day changes and they then have to change the truck again. The food that they are allowed to bring in is being left to sit in a warehouse going out of date and then when it is out of date it is not let in. It is unbelievable to think that the actions being taken are being done to prevent food and life-saving treatment from getting in. At the same time, the figures will show that hundreds of trucks are coming in. What it does not say is that it might be a truck full of Nutella or a truck full of goods that are going to be sold that people cannot actually afford. These are the types of actions that we need to continue to highlight and which I am highlighting at the Foreign Affairs Council.
My colleague, the Minister of State, has responsibility for development aid. During our Presidency, one of our core priorities will be values. That means making sure that the values that underpin the European Union and the actions that we take are upheld. That means supporting life-saving organisations like UNRWA and the World Food Programme that are supporting people in Gaza, not pulling back our funding as other countries have done, but actually advocating and building a consensus to make sure the funding is reinstated and increased at a time when it is needed.

---

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/2026-05-21/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:58+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-21