EU-Israel Association Agreement: Motion
Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-28
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Tom Clonan (IND), University of Dublin

I welcome the Minister of State. I commend our colleagues in Fianna Fáil on setting out this motion with clarity and detail. I thank my colleagues on this side of the House for their amendments. I echo all the sentiments expressed in this debate. We must be very clear that the blueprint for conflict in the 21st century is being firmly set out in Gaza. To the new term "urbanicide" coined to describe Russia's actions in Ukraine, we can now add "medicide" to describe the targeting of nurses, doctors and paramedics and their deliberate murder in double- and triple-tap attacks. A total of 70,000 people have been killed, the majority of them women and children. That is infanticide, femicide and patricide. It is genocide.
In lending urgency to the demands for action set out in the motion, I highlight that the Israelis are now carrying out ethnic cleansing in Lebanon, in and among the villages where hundreds of our young men and women - the very best of us - are posted. That really should prompt firmer action on the part of the Government. What I find really disturbing are the reports by The Guardian that the Israelis are using cluster munitions in and around Irish positions in places like Deir Al-Ahmar, Wadi Deir Siryan and the little towns and villages that we veterans know so well. Those cluster munitions are being transited to Israel through our airspace and through Shannon Airport. Under the international reciprocal agreement, Irish taxpayers are paying a financial contribution to the transit of those weapons for use in proximity to our troops. I cannot think of another nation in the European Union that would permit or tolerate this. I ask the Minister of State to look into it.
Our troops are witnessing the destruction of all the little towns and villages around them. They will have seen, as I did, the hundreds of children who come out to follow the Irish armoured personnel carriers. The vicarious harm and trauma of seeing injury to innocent civilians and being powerless to intervene is recognised in the international literature as one of the primary risk factors and accelerators for complex post-traumatic stress disorder. As part of the overall package, what is being done for our returning troops? What extra supports are being put in place to deal with their complex PTSD and the associated risk factors? Dr. Danny Fitzpatrick, who recently retired from the Defence Forces and is a veteran of many missions in Europe and elsewhere, has just written a PhD on complex PTSD in members of the Defence Forces. He acknowledges that there are no proper provisions and no proper mental health supports in our Defence Forces.
Our soldiers are seeing villagers being ethnically cleansed around them. In all previous interventions in Lebanon, the IDF has murdered UN peacekeepers. The risk to our troops is very real and present. We should not make any contribution to the transit of munitions, ordnance, weapons delivery systems or cluster munitions to that area.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-28/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:01+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-28