Richard Boyd Barrett: Sanction Trump and Israel Over Cost Crisis

Thanks Ceann Comhairle. So Minister, there are hundreds of thousands of people in this country now who are being impoverished and having hardship imposed on them because of the deranged lunatic Donald Trump in the White House and the psychopaths that run the Israeli regime and their bloodlust and warmongering. So people in this country cannot pay their bills, cannot turn on their heating, cannot travel in some cases when they have disabilities because of the mad dog Trump and because of Netanyahu and the Israeli regime. And still our government can't condemn what Trump is doing. They can't impose sanctions on the regime that he's doing it with in Israel. As we speak there are people outside asking where is the Occupied Territories Bill to impose sanctions on Israel for its illegal occupation, for its genocidal campaign against the Palestinians. But now there's another reason. There's another reason. Because people in this country cannot pay their bills because of what these psychopaths are doing. That we still treat as if they are normal states. I mean have you ever seen, have you ever seen anything like Trump boasting about the murder of people. Whatever you may think about the Iranian regime, boasting saying we killed them all. That is the behaviour of a psychopath. Like if you were to define psychopath, that's a psychopath. And he's running the most powerful government in the world and he's collaborating with a regime that is in the dock for genocide. By the way, a genocidal campaign that continues against the Palestinians, continues in the West Bank, is now expanded to the ethnic cleansing of Lebanon and an explicit plan to occupy another country, southern Lebanon, and waging a criminal war against Iran which has now inflamed the entire Middle East and is costing every single person in this country to the extent that some people can't turn on the heating. And we can't condemn it. And not only that, we're facilitating the troops at Shannon Airport. US troops, the people who are doing this to our people, never mind raining death and destruction on people in the Middle East and setting the world on fire, but immiserating people here and their troops are going through Shannon Airport. Now, Timmy, I know how forceful you've been about Russia's illegal war in Ukraine. Imagine, imagine anybody suggested that a representative of this country should go over and give shamrock to Vladimir Putin, meet him at all, or meet him and say nothing about what he's doing in Ukraine and allow his troops to go through Shannon Airport. There'd be outrage, outrage. But yes, quietly we just allowed US troops to go through Shannon Airport while they're saying, Trump, these psychopaths in the White House and in the Israeli regime continue these crimes and people here are suffering for it and you continue to take no action whatsoever. And then you throw back this, a pittance, two cents on the leader. It's absolutely pathetic. It's pathetic. It's an insult. And of course, you know, there's people speculating out of all this, Trump's friends. There's people getting rich on all this. And while all this cost a living misery, which has been going on since 2021, I can tell you, we're not Johnny Come Lately's when it comes to addressing the very issues we're discussing. I was just looking back at our motion, the first cost of living motion that came into this house, the beginning of the cost of living crisis produced by us on the 6th of October, 2021, right? Talking about the need for price controls on electricity, on fuel, on petrol, on home heating oil, talking about the need to boost up the retrofit of homes so people could actually bring down their bills, cost of disability, and addressing the poverty crisis that exists in this country, the number of people in energy poverty. And six years later, we're still dealing with the same issues, except they just got worse. They've got worse. And all that time, the profits of the energy companies of this country have gone through the roof. Up, up, up. ESB profits, energy profits, board gosh profits, up, up, up. People speculating on oil and all that kind of thing, all making profits at the expense of ordinary people suffering cost of living misery, unable to turn on the heating. 700,000 people in this country living in poverty, living in poverty in one of the richest countries in the world. And still, this is the best you can do. You can do other things. You refuse to do it. I honestly don't understand why, except as Deputy Murphy said, because you're not willing to stand up to these corporations because you can introduce price controls. Have they done it anywhere else? Hungary? The Czech Republic? Croatia? They've brought in forms of price control in Spain. I think in Italy as well. It can be done. To control these goods, to give security to people, and how do you pay for it? Well, just look at the profits that are being made. A bit of a levy on the profits of the data centres, the people who are sucking up all the electricity. Or the record profits, the 300 billion that has been made in corporate profits last year. More than that, in fact. More than 300 billion. Profits that have gone up by 200-300% over the last decade. While ordinary people are being absolutely crucified. But you won't do it. You won't do it. It's okay for them to profiteer while ordinary people suffer with this cost of living crisis. And you won't even call out the people who are choosing to make it worse, like Trump and the Israeli regime. So, you know, to me it's fairly obvious. The double standards are clear. We cuddle up to the warmongers, to the psychopaths. We refuse to sanction them. We refuse to condemn them. We grovel before them with shamrock. We let their troops go through Shannon Airport. You know, might these people use a nuclear weapon if things don't go well for them? There's someone in Wood. Some of the Republican senators who are supporters of Trump are actually suggesting the use of nuclear weapons. This is how mad these people are. So I just ask, at what point do we call stop to this madness? Do we stand up? Do we assert a noble tradition in this country which is opposition to empires? That's where this all started. You know, the struggle of this country for freedom started. The struggle against empire, against colonialism, against the First World War. We should remember that history and heritage and show it some respect as well as ordinary people are being crushed with this cost of living crisis. For more UN videos visit www.un.org