Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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11. To ask the Taoiseach to report on his recent meeting with the prime minister of the United Kingdom. [36705/24]

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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12. To ask the Taoiseach to report on his recent meeting with the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer. [36721/24]

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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13. To ask the Taoiseach to report on any recent discussions he has had with the British prime minister. [37659/24]

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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14. To ask the Taoiseach to report on his most recent meeting with the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer. [41384/24]

Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity)
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15. To ask the Taoiseach to report on his recent meeting with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer. [41447/24]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 11 to 15, inclusive, together.

I welcomed the UK Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, to Farmleigh House on 7 September. His visit to Dublin followed our meeting in Chequers on 17 July, when we resolved to have a reset of the Irish-British relationship. At Farmleigh, we agreed to take forward strategic co-operation across four pillars, which we set out in the joint statement we issued after our meeting. Those pillars are security, justice and global issues; climate, energy, technology and innovation; growth, trade and investment; and culture, education and people-to-people connections. We also agreed to initiate a series of annual leader-level summits with the first to take place in the spring of 2025.

At our meeting in Dublin, Prime Minister Starmer and I discussed our shared commitment as co-guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement and our ambition for greater opportunity, economic prosperity and reconciliation across these islands to include and benefit Northern Ireland. I raised the case of Pat Finucane and I welcome that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has since announced a public inquiry into that case. I pay tribute to Geraldine, John and the rest of the Finucane family, who have campaigned for this for very many years. Our discussions also focused on urgent global issues, including the situation in Ukraine and the crisis in the Middle East.

I very much welcome the fact that we now have an interlocutor in Downing Street who very much uses the language of co-guarantor. I am very grateful to him for his fulsome engagement at a very early stage of his premiership. The Anglo-Irish reset is so important but there are some real and meaty issues on which progress needs to be made, particularly the issue of legacy. I welcome the fact that the British Government has committed to repealing the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act. This is good progress. However, I would like to see an intensity to the conversation about what can ultimately replace that. That has to be victim-centred, it has to involve parties in the North and the two governments, and it has to get to a place where we can genuinely try to provide truth, justice and accountability for all families.

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the fact that there has been much more active engagement at heads of government and ministerial level between the Irish and British Governments. This needs to continue. The Taoiseach will recall that when the British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly met in his constituency of Wicklow, members of the British and Irish delegations, including me, spoke about the need to intensify engagements at bilateral level, at political and public service level and in our parliamentary relations across these islands between the different jurisdictions. I am glad there is progress in that respect and that progress needs to continue.

The Taoiseach referred to the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act. On many occasions in this House, both with his predecessor Deputy Varadkar and the Tánaiste, I have raised the need to have that legislation replaced. It is a deplorable piece of legislation that gives murderers the right to declare amnesty for themselves and to absolve of the most heinous of crimes. That is not acceptable, regardless of whether people from British state forces or paramilitary organisations carried out those horrific and heinous acts.

There is no way that legislation should be enacted. My understanding is that the UK Labour Party promised in its manifesto to repeal and replace the Act. I have heard some commentary from people in Northern Ireland who are quite concerned that the Secretary of State has not indicated a complete repeal of the Act. He has talked about repealing parts of it. As the Taoiseach knows well, the Government needs to be very vigilant and diligent on this issue.

I have raised the lack of co-operation with the British Government on the investigation into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings on many occasions in the House. That was the day on which there was the most serious loss of life on this island during the Troubles. We also need full co-operation with regard to the investigation into the Belturbet bombing on 28 December 1972, when two young teenagers were killed. We all know that act was perpetrated by the UVF, but nobody has been brought to justice. Those inquiries must be given more momentum.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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At what point does the Taoiseach think Israel's crimes against the Palestinians reach the threshold of horror and unacceptability that mean it deserves the same sort of sanctions as apartheid South Africa? I ask that because the crimes it has committed are way in excess of even that horrific regime. Long before the genocide of last year, many South African representatives, going right back to Mandela and Desmond Tutu, said that this is an obnoxious apartheid regime that is horrific in its treatment of Palestinians. We now have a genocide. When the Taoiseach discusses this with Keir Starmer, whose views in continuing to justify Israel's crimes are shocking beyond belief, I genuinely ask at what point he will say that Israel has reached the threshold that apartheid South Africa reached when it had to be cast out of the international community and totally isolated because its regime was based on systematic crime against the majority of the population. Has Israel not reached that threshold? How can Ireland facilitate the sale of Israeli war bonds, which are being touted as financing its campaign in Gaza, which in the view of many, if not most, people is genocidal, to finance the mass murder of Palestinians? Will the Government do something about it?

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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Relatedly, did the Taoiseach raise with Keir Starmer the need to stop arms exports to Israel? Britain is a major arms supplier to Israel. Five days before the Taoiseach's meeting, the British Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, announced the suspension of only 30 export licences out of 350 to Israel. He was at pains to emphasise that this was not an arms embargo and that the point was "in no way to punish Israel". He claimed that Israel must have the so-called right to defend itself. The vast majority of people in this country would certainly agree that Israel has gone many light years past any point of defending itself. It is massacring tens of thousands of innocent people across Gaza. It is now invading Lebanon, shooting children in the head, stripping people naked, lining them up, throwing them into mass graves, using chemical weapons against UN peacekeepers and burning people alive. It is carrying out a holocaust. Did the Taoiseach ask Keir Starmer to stop all arms exports to the genocidal Israeli state? Did he back out of raising it as he did with President Biden?

Deputy Barry used an appropriate turn of phrase when he spoke about the postdated cheques being written by the Government. One of those postdated cheques relates to the occupied territories Bill, which has been before the Houses of the Oireachtas for six years now. A statement just out from the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs states that a review of the occupied territories Bill will be commenced, giving people the hope that this may actually be implemented, but not until after the election. Does the Taoiseach really expect people to believe that?

Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity)
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The Taoiseach met Keir Starmer, whose government is arming Israel. He met Joe Biden. The Biden Administration is arming Israel big-time. These men have funded and armed a genocide; just look at the horrific events in Jabalia. After shaking the bloodstained hands of those men, has the Taoiseach had to wipe blood away from his own hand? He told Ryan Tubridy that he cries when he thinks about the Palestinian children. That is some bit of compartmentalisation. He cries for the children and he then shakes the hands of the men who pay for and provide the bombs that kill the kids. There have been too many lies from the Bidens and Starmers of this world and too many empty words from the likes of the Taoiseach. There can be no business as usual. This is a genocide. It is time for action, not empty words.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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Like many others, I am very concerned by the proposals to continue with the ICRIR, to appeal court judgments and to block an inquiry into the killing of Sean Brown against the recommendations of the coroner. The UK Labour Party needs to end the failed approach of the Tories and deliver on its promise to repeal and replace. This Government and any future government must continue with the European case until this legislation is binned. We will meet with the Secretary of State as part of the Good Friday Agreement committee, along with Deputy Tully, on Thursday. We will raise these matters with him. Will the Taoiseach ensure that the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister know that there has to be a repeal of this Act? A repeal and replacement of it was promised. This absolutely has to be done. Too much is at stake for him to renege on such a promise.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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I agree that at any engagement with world leaders of states involved in supplying weapons to Israel, we have to bring up the brutal genocide and unacceptability of any of that. I agree with what many Deputies have said about ensuring that we have repeal of the legacy Act and that we find a fit-for-purpose solution to provide truth and justice to the families of those killed in Dublin and Monaghan; of Hugh Watters and Jack Rooney, who were killed in the Dundalk bombing; of Seamus Ludlow; of Sean Brown; and of many others. That is something that needs to happen. I have spoken to the Taoiseach previously about the need to make sure that regardless of who is in government in the near future, we talk about making preparations for the possibility of constitutional change and a united Ireland. That is something we have to do the preparatory work for. I have also spoken to the Taoiseach - this was brought up again at a recent awards event I attended at Dundalk Chamber of Commerce - about cross-Border taxation issues, especially regarding remote workers. The British Government at this point in time may be easier to engage with. We also have Conor Murphy as Minister for the Economy and Caoimhe Archibald as Minister of Finance in the North. The Taoiseach spoke previously about the possibility of a hub to deal with these sorts of cross-Border issues. Has he given any more thought to that? Is it any further on? We need to see that and then do the preparatory work on real and meaningful change that will deliver a better Ireland for all of us.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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While I remember it, I will start with the Deputy's point about the hub, which is a good idea. I am very eager to engage, and to have our counterparts here engage, with Ministers Murphy and Archibald on it. If that has not happened, I will ask that it does. It is a sensible suggestion that the Deputy has made. He also referenced the case of Sean Brown. I will say, on the record of the House, that my thoughts are with the family of Sean Brown, particularly his widow, Bridie, following the announcement that the British Government will not establish a public inquiry into the killing. The Brown family has campaigned tirelessly for the past 27 years for truth, transparency and accountability. Officials from our Government met with the Brown family on 26 September to discuss how best the Government can support them going forward in their campaign. It is very clear to me that the British Government cannot leave matters as they currently stand in relation to this case.

I thank Deputy Smith for the work he and his colleagues do on the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly. It takes on renewed importance at this time of a reset of Anglo-Irish relations. It is to be hoped there can be an intensity of that engagement the Deputy wishes for. I will do all I can to assist with that.

In response to Deputies Smith and Conway-Walsh, I welcome the fact that we now have now have a British Government that is committed to repealing and replacing the legacy Act. That is really important. However, we also have to be very honest. So far, it has not happened yet. We have that commitment. That is welcome. We want to engage on it, but it has not yet happened. I would like to see progress and action soon, especially regarding the kind of important engagement that needs to take place, because that is what did not happen in this past. We have to learn from the mistakes made by previous British Governments in railroading through legislation that nobody wanted in terms of any political party in Northern Ireland. This Government certainly did not want it, and I do not think anyone in this House did too. In the meantime, we will continue to engage with the British Government to explore whether and how we can develop an agreed approach. On Deputy Conway-Walsh's point, I would like to get to a point where, through a process of meaningful joint work between our Governments, we would no longer need to take that inter-state case. I accept that we are not at that point yet. No one wants to find ourselves in an inter-state case with Britain. That is not where we want to be, but we need to see progress. There is an important sequencing in that regard. I hope Sinn Féin is meeting with the Secretary of State, who I believe to be a good person, and engaging in good faith. I hope it is a productive meeting.

Deputy Smith raised the Belturbet bombing. I agree with the Deputy on its importance. This is one of the many reasons we need to make progress on legacy.

Deputies Boyd Barrett, Murphy, Barry and Ó Murchú raised the issue of Israel and the actions of this Government. First, to be clear, when I meet everybody, publicly and privately, including the President of the United States of America, I raise the issue of weapons. I believe every country needs to use every lever at its disposal to bring about a ceasefire and stop the violence. In some cases such as Ireland, that does not involve weapons, but in the case of the United States it does. People are trying - for whatever reason - to suggest things that simply are not true. Deputy Barry did not want me to meet the President of the United States, a point he made as I set off from the House to meet him. That is the Deputy's prerogative. I believe it is extremely important that we do. I believe it is extraordinarily important that we continue to engage with the British Prime Minister for a whole variety of reasons, not least the peace process and the UK being our nearest neighbours. There is a sincerity from people in wanting to see a ceasefire, but the actions of the world to bring it about have been utterly ineffective. I made a point not a million miles from Deputy Boyd Barrett's point at the European Council this week, when I asked what is the tipping point at which the European Union decides to take action on the association agreement. The reality - I am being very honest in this House - is that it is a minority view among member states that the association agreement on trade should be reviewed. I find that deeply unsettling, quite frankly. Spain and Slovenia share our view, and a number of other countries may share the view, but certainly not a majority of countries. That is why we have looked at the Occupied Territories Bill in the light of the ICJ advisory opinion to see if there is a new context now. The international court matters, what it says matters and in the view of this Government, it places an obligation on member states to act. It is not the same thing as saying that the Occupied Territories Bill as it is works, but we are willing now to engage in light of the new Attorney General advice I sought. As soon as today, the Tánaiste will be speaking to the sponsor of that Bill. Our words are not empty when it comes to support for Palestine. If one asks the Palestinian President, the Palestinian Authority, UNRWA or the United Nations, one will learn that this is a Government that is acting in terms of trying to support the people of Palestine.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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War bonds.

Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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As there are only 30 seconds left, the next question will be taken tomorrow.