Would the Minister of State, Deputy Harkin, not respond?

The foxes and the pigs are taking over.

There are some positive points in the review, in that children who were appropriately placed felt included and that their needs were being met. It shows that if the resources were put in, many other children and teenagers could feel that. Unfortunately, I have to emphasise the problems. In the review, 60% of parents had experienced difficulty finding a place in an appropriate setting despite the fact that more than 50% of parents had identified the needs of their children before they went in. Some 26% of parents ex…

Every day people in Gaza play what is called "the hunger games". After two months without a shred of food, milk, medicine or flour coming into the territory, they brave Israeli army bullets at feeding stations that have been set up, for the chance of a bag of flour, a tin of food or whatever for their starving families. We had indelible images from the Holocaust. These will be the indelible images from this holocaust against the Palestinians and history will record that this has been sanctioned and facilitated by t…

It has become a significant transit point for the US military since 9/11. The RTÉ news data, for example, reported 2,000 applications for exemptions, of which only 0.1% were refused. Literally millions of US troops have passed through Shannon Airport in the past 20 years.

Shannon Airport is a de facto military base and the US is financing the genocide on Gaza. Will the Tánaiste pull that lever and stop the US army from using Shannon Airport?

I did not say that.

You are, but I did not say it.

Stick to the question on the occupied territories Bill.

The point of my contribution was that we are the second biggest trader with Israel. It is worth €3.3 billion. The occupied territories Bill is a fraction of that. It is a welcome step. The question is why the Government is not moving forward the whole occupied territories Bill that was originally proposed in the Dáil six years ago. It was unanimously or certainly overwhelmingly supported. Fianna Fáil brought it in and was cheering and whooping about it. The Government has the chance to bring in the whole Bill. Ther…

For 20 months, we have all known that what has been going on is wrong and very little has been done by Ireland-----

-----to use the levers. The levers are there, but is the Government willing to pull them?

The first lever is the occupied territories Bill. The Government needs to move it and make sure the Bill gets in before the recess. However, there are other issues such as Shannon Airport and the Bill on the Israeli war bonds, which the Tánaiste and members of Government voted down. The bar is low in the EU. There is no point in comparing yourself to them.

This is about a neutral country standing up for the people of Palestine.

You are collaborators with the Israeli regime.

You are seen as that by Palestinians.

Talk to Palestinians.

Last night, the "Natasha" documentary on RTÉ charted what happened to Natasha O'Brien. It was a valuable documentary. I want the Tánaiste to take seriously the case of a woman who has spoken to me and who was abused by an Army member. He used his Army position, military surveillance, Army guns and even a grenade to threaten her and her family. He told this woman that he was untouchable. I am talking about sexual assault and very serious abuse. She reported him to the Defence Forces for sending pictures of guns to h…

The problem with this legislation is defining who are the terrorists in the world right now. The biggest terrorists in the world right now are Israel, the US and Russia. There are many other terrorist states also but they are the big three. To the best of my knowledge, the Government has only condemned one, which is Russia. We are trading and dealing with Israel. We are the second biggest trader, as has been reported. Of course, this Government completely kowtows to the US. I ask again: does the Government condemn …

Perhaps I could comment on the general maintenance of the Special Criminal Court and the idea of maintaining trials without juries. It is ironic that we talked last month about the counselling notes issue and the Minister said it would be unconstitutional because of the pressing right to a fair trial in our Constitution, yet we can have non-jury trials. How does he match that up? Rape victims can have their therapy notes, including their private thoughts, taken by the defence because of the right to a fair trial al…