A Picket by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign has taken place this morning, outside the constituency office of Carlow Kilkenny TD John McGuinness.
20 Protesters are calling for an end to the Irish Central Bank’s role in the sale of Israeli government bonds, and the enactment of the Occupied Territories Bill.
A new bill to outlaw the sale of Israeli Government bonds through the Central Bank is due to be put before the Dáil by the Social Democrats next week, after a similar Sinn Féin motion was defeated last week.
IPSC Campaigner Stephanie McDermott, who was at the protest, said that people feel helpless to stop the suffering in Gaza.
“They feel helpless and they feel hopeless, and they’re tending to switch off, because they feel they can’t do anything, but in fact people can do a lot, if people write to their politicians, all of our Carlow and Kilkenny politicians, that absolutely need to step up, need to really respond to what people want.”
Speaking to KCLR News, Deputy McGuinness noted that he had met with the protesters.
“I met with the representatives of that group”, he said, “and we had an open and frank conversation about the issues that concern them, and they’re the same issues that concern me. That is, the war bonds that are being sold, I think it’s unacceptable that these bonds would be sold at all throughout Europe, and would be openly described as war bonds, people find that quite disgusting.”
