First Minister Michelle O’Neill has backed the Irish president’s decision to highlight the conflict in Gaza during a Holocaust memorial event.
But Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly has said the Irish head of state’s comments were “absolutely wrong”.
During Michael D Higgins’ speech at Dublin’s Mansion House on Sunday he referred to the Hamas attack of October 7 2023 in which 1200 people were killed and more than 250 hostages taken.
He also went on to cite the subsequent Israeli government response, which has led to 47,000 deaths in Gaza, the majority women and children.
A number of people left during the president’s remarks, while others were removed from the event, which marked 80 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz.
“It is to be hoped that those in Israel who mourn their loved ones, those who have been waiting for the release of hostages, or the thousands searching for relatives in the rubble in Gaza will welcome the long-overdue ceasefire for which there has been such a heavy price paid,” President Higgins said.
“The grief inflicted on families by the horrific acts of October 7, and the response to it, is unimaginable – the loss of civilian life, the majority women and children, their displacement, loss of homes, the necessary institutions for life itself. How can the world continue to look at the empty bowls of the starving?”
The president also said it was important that each generation and political leaders were aware not just of the consequences of an “attempted genocide” but of the “complicit actions of silence, of the averted gaze, of those who, by their culpable indifference” who enabled the Holocaust to be carried out.
Speaking at Parliament Buildings on Monday, Ms O’Neill said it was “regrettable that there’s so much negativity” in relation to the president’s remarks.
“I think the president used his office to raise his own personal view in terms of how strongly he feels about genocide across the world,” she said.
“I think particularly at this time, when we reflect on all the suffering of the Holocaust and those people that lost lives through what was genocide then, and reflect on the current situation, particularly in the Middle East, right now and the genocide in Gaza, I think that the president has taken the opportunity to express his views, and that’s his voice.”
But the first minister’s DUP Executive Office counterpart said the president’s comments were at the “wrong time” and in the “wrong place”.
Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly criticised President Higgins for “politicising” the Holocaust memorial event.
“President Higgins has had many opportunities to talk about these issues, and indeed he has taken up those opportunities but Holocaust Memorial Day is a time for a somber reflection of the loss of 6 million Jewish people in the Holocaust,” she said.
“I understand that the request was made for him not to politicise that event. No one should be politicising those events or cause of any further hurt or discomfort. So I believe that he was wrong to say what he said at that place. It was the wrong place and the wrong thing to say.”
In the assembly, Ulster Unionist MLA Steve Aiken claimed the president’s remarks reflected “the ingrained anti semitism now prevalent on this island”.
Speaking in Dublin, Tánaiste Simon Harris has defended the president’s decision to raise the conflict in Gaza.
“I understand there were a small number of people who protested, and of course people have a right to protest, but I think the president was very clear, as is the government, as are the people of Ireland, in calling out the horrors of the Holocaust and making sure we remember that we record that, that we acknowledge that each year, and of course, people have a right to protest,” the Fine Gael leader said.”
Asked whether he believed it was appropriate for the president to raise the issues in Gaza during his speech about the Holocaust, Mr Harris said: “I think the president was very clear in relation to, obviously specific issues regarding the Holocaust and his absolute condemnation of the horror, the murder of the Jewish people, but also, I think, rightly mentioning the situation in the Middle East as well.”
