Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions Dail Éireann — 2026-03-03 ============================================================ Ivana Bacik (LAB), Dublin Bay South We are witnessing a terrifying outbreak of war in Iran and across the Middle East over recent days, with strikes on schools and infrastructure, citizens locked down, flights cancelled and global chaos. At the outset, I will say what the Taoiseach and his Government colleagues have so far failed to say, namely that the attacks carried out by the United States and Israel represent a flagrant breach of international law. Their bombardment of Iran is illegal and should be condemned by the Taoiseach. Of course, the Iranian regime is tyrannical, deeply repressive and has murdered thousands of civilians over recent months. Labour has consistently condemned the Iranian regime and has supported pro-democracy and women's rights campaigners in Iran. Indeed, I have been publicly condemned by the Iranian ambassador to Ireland because I criticised his depraved whitewash of the murder of teenager Jina Mahsa Amini by so-called morality police in Iran. I brought Irish citizen Bernard Phelan to Leinster House to speak about his illegal and brutal incarceration by Iran in the so-called Satan's Block prison wing. We in Labour have no truck with the Iranian regime. However, two things can be true at once. We can oppose and condemn an authoritarian regime, yet still insist international law is upheld . When we see the erosion of democracy and creeping fascism in different countries across the world, it becomes all the more important for us to uphold the rule of law resolutely and steadfastly and the Taoiseach must acknowledge that. Yet, he cannot bring himself to condemn outright these attacks. Instead, he engages in what I would say is doublespeak. He said he is a multilateralist but criticised the United Nations which, while imperfect, represents the embodiment of a multilateral world order and of multilateralism and the rule of law. Worse again, in a fortnight he will genuflect before the man responsible for this global disorder and will do so in the name of the people of Ireland, all without offering any principled criticism of Trump's warmongering. It is warmongering. Trump's war has consequences. Some 200 children were killed in a strike on an Iranian primary school. A total of 25,000 Irish citizens are stranded and trapped in countries across the Middle East as they experience appalling and illegal bombing by Iran. We are all waiting to learn what exactly Trump means when he says, "We haven't even started hitting them hard". Those are terrifying words. This is a chaotic White House, which is destabilising what was already a tinderbox in the Middle East, destroying innocent lives, disrupting the global economy and pushing the most vulnerable people into harsh poverty. Here in Ireland, energy bills are skyrocketing already. On "Liveline" yesterday we heard from people frazzled, racing against the real-time price-gouging that we are seeing with home heating oil, forced to plan for yet more wartime inflation, just four years after the Putin's brutal war in Ukraine. We cannot then see the Taoiseach engage in plastic-Paddy pageantry while hiding behind vague language. Will the Taoiseach condemn the US and Israeli action as a breach of international law? What is the Government doing to safeguard Irish citizens in the region and to ensure de-escalation? --- 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/2026-03-03/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:02+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-03-03