Cabinet Committees
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-29
============================================================

Conor D. McGuinness (SF), Waterford

Will the Taoiseach intervene urgently to secure access to Gaza for a mobile maternity unit funded by the community in west Waterford through a major fundraising campaign led by Gael ar son Gaza? We know the criminal Israeli regime has targeted medical personnel and medical infrastructure and this has led to there being no maternity facilities in the whole of Gaza. Women are giving birth in the most atrocious conditions and the impact on women - expectant and new mothers - and their babies is immense. It is part of Israel's genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people. It is an attack on newborns, pregnant women and maternity services. That is why the community in west Waterford and many other communities have raised money to fund mobile maternity units. However, Israel, in its callousness and inhumanity, is stopping them from entering Gaza so women are still giving birth under canvas and in tents, in the most medieval conditions. This summer, all but two of Ireland's MEPs co-signed a letter to Kaja Kallas seeking her intervention. I will not name the two MEPs who did not sign it but it is on the public record for those who are interested. Will the Taoiseach, in the context of Ireland's Presidency of the Council of the European Union, intervene and use every lever available to him and the EU to get these mobile maternity units into Gaza?

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-29/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-10-05T01:00:59+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-29