Sinn Féin spokesperson on Foreign Affairs and Defence, Matt Carthy TD, has said that the Irish government must ‘show some backbone’ and meaningfully challenge Israel and its collaborators for their illegal use of Irish airspace.

Deputy Carthy was speaking after a government investigation confirmed that a number of flights passed through sovereign Irish airspace carrying weapons of war destined for Israel, who are currently engaged in a genocide against the Palestinian people of Gaza and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.

Teachta Carthy said:

“Concerns that Ireland has been used to transit weapons to illegal wars have long been dismissed by government Ministers.

“Now, The Ditch website has laid bare the dirty truth that successive governments have not only failed to protect Irish neutrality, but potentially facilitating the transport of weapons to be used in a genocide.

“Irish domestic law has been ignored by those transporting weapons through our sovereign airspace.  We would not even know about it were it not for the work of a media website.

“People should be in no doubt – components of deadly weapons have flown in the sky above the heads of Irish citizens without the permission of the Irish government.  Those same weapons may well have killed countless innocent civilians and threatened the lives of Irish soldiers operating as part of United Nations peacekeeping missions in Lebanon and Syria.

“The question now is what the government will do about it.  As well as its flagrant disregard for international law, Israel is again in breach of Irish domestic law.

“The Irish government must show some backbone and challenge Israel for these actions.

“As a first step they must immediately lift their parliamentary obstacles to the enactment of the Occupied Territories Bill and Sinn Féin’s Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill.  They must also clearly state what actions they will take to the illegal use of sovereign Irish airspace.”