Sinéad Gibney: Stop the Game, End Government Inaction
Sinéad Gibney addresses parliament calling on the government to "stop the game," urging boycott, divestment and sanctions in response to atrocities in Palestine. She accuses ministers of repeating stock responses and of choosing inaction despite evidence and eyewitness testimony.
Sinéad Gibney opens by thanking opposition contributors and criticises the near absence of government representation. She tells ministers they recycled a previous speech and that the government has failed to properly engage with the motion opposing a sporting fixture with Israel.
Gibney explains the purpose of boycott, divestment and sanctions as a step-by-step international response where individual states and groups act to create pressure. She argues the action aims to penalise the state, not athletes, and to trigger wider consequences when global consensus is absent.
She refers to testimony reported to parliament, including graphic accounts of atrocities seen in Palestine. Gibney highlights reports of extreme violence against civilian populations and describes this as part of the reason for urgent action.
Gibney invokes international norms, naming the Genocide Convention and the UDHR, and urges ministers to use available tools. She finishes with a direct plea to the government: do the one thing in front of you, stop the game.
Parliamentary challenge
Sinéad Gibney opens by thanking opposition contributors and criticises the near absence of government representation. She tells ministers they recycled a previous speech and that the government has failed to properly engage with the motion opposing a sporting fixture with Israel.
What boycott means
Gibney explains the purpose of boycott, divestment and sanctions as a step-by-step international response where individual states and groups act to create pressure. She argues the action aims to penalise the state, not athletes, and to trigger wider consequences when global consensus is absent.
Eyewitness testimony and evidence
She refers to testimony reported to parliament, including graphic accounts of atrocities seen in Palestine. Gibney highlights reports of extreme violence against civilian populations and describes this as part of the reason for urgent action.
Legal and moral appeal
Gibney invokes international norms, naming the Genocide Convention and the UDHR, and urges ministers to use available tools. She finishes with a direct plea to the government: do the one thing in front of you, stop the game.
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Transcript
I want to start by thanking everybody for their incredible contributions today. We've heard some really impassioned, some very well informed, evidence-based, detailed contributions from everybody on these opposition benches, unified in our message for you to stop the game. And what a shame that those contributions fall on not just deaf ears, there's no ears here. There's barely any representation from government. And I welcome that you've been able to return here to the debate, and I know that you did explain in advance that you had another engagement, Minister, but honestly, it didn't really make any difference because the words we heard delivered from your colleague, Minister Timmy Dooley, were the exact same words that we heard last night in a different motion. Honestly, I'm just shocked at that, that you literally just changed the numbers at the top of the documents. That's the level of engagement that you've given to this motion, to our work as parliamentarians, to represent the people who are so appalled at the thought of us playing Israel in a soccer game. And that's all you bother to do, is just change the number on a motion and read it back to us. And your take on our motion, Minister, is simply wrong. We are not trying to penalise the sporting community, we are not trying to set them back, Olympians, athletes in any sport, that's not what we're trying to do. And it displays for me that you don't understand what boycott actually means. Because the whole idea about this is, as other colleagues have said, and as I called out to you last night when you read out the exact same speech, there is not the same consensus in the international community about Israel as there has been for Russia and other countries where we have seen united action against them. We don't have that. So in the absence of that, Minister, and in your now-acknowledged acceptance that we don't have that, what we have to try and do is one by one, as individual beings and as individual nations, we have to stand up and say, no, we will not take that. And what will happen is that a domino set of actions will follow, which mean that we won't be the ones penalised, Minister, our sports people won't be the ones penalised, it will be Israel who will be penalised. Because they will not be able to stand in resistance to the actions that we start. That's what boycott, divestment and sanctions does. That's how it works and it seems to be lost on you guys completely. This genocide is unique because we are all seeing the atrocities. And we are all aghast because the other thing we are seeing is the inaction of governments the world over. And I mentioned Al-Haq earlier and one of their other contributors was really powerful in their description because they said, not only is the inaction clear from governments, but those same governments have ministers who have been to Palestine. Your colleagues have been there. They've told us this. They know what's going on. And you'll excuse me for getting graphic for a minute, but they have heard of the decapitated bodies coming back to Palestinian communities. They have heard and they have witnessed the atrocities that are going on there. The not isolated but systemic rape and torture of Palestinian prisoners. They have seen this, Minister. You as a government have seen this and you choose in response, inaction. That is why we are so angry as a party, as a people, as a football community, as a globe, that this is being allowed to continue. We can all see it with our own eyes. And you obfuscate and you dance on the heads of pins to tell us the reasons why you can't act. We cannot tolerate it anymore, Minister. You and your colleagues know what is going on. You know the tools that are available to you. You know the words of the Genocide Convention, the UDHR which says that we will save future generations from the scourges of war. You know you have the ability to do this. And the final quote that I want to finish on was from that same group because they said the Palestinian people, the Lebanese people, they are not crying out now for us to save Palestine, for us to save Lebanon. They are crying out for us as a globe to save humanity. Now do the one thing, the one thing that is in front of you, stop the game.