All eyes in the Seanad’s gallery were fixed on the digital counter on television screens as it recorded the votes from the Seanadoirí on Frances Black’s ‘Occupied Territories Bill’ (OTB) seeking to ban produce from Israel’s illegal settlements.
Whispers among the packed gallery of Palestinians and their Irish supporters as to what they were watching mixed with the knowing smiling faces of the Seanadoirí in the chamber who looked towards the gallery with thumbs up.
This was the biggest of moments for the Palestinians and for the people of Ireland. Big moments can overwhelm even the calmest of logical minds. This was one such moment.
The Seanad Cathoirleach had earlier asked the Seanadoirí for an audible indication of their response to the Bill: Ta/Yes, Nil/No.
To my ‘chamber trained ear’ the Tas had it by an audible mile but a screen digital vote is another matter entirely – it is the ‘press-button-will’ of the Seanadoirí - not the loudest voices.
Like the Palestinians and the internationally acclaimed artist, Bobby Ballagh, who was sitting beside me, (especially for the debate), and the ten members of Sinn Féin Ográ from Belfast and Dundalk, (also there especially for the debate), and watching it on ‘in-house’ televisions in Seanad offices, we were all anxious as the digital Tas and Nils competed with each other, for what seemed like an eternity as the pendulum swung between the Tas and the Nils before firmly settling on the Tas having it by a majority of 25 to 20.
Seanadóir Frances Black immediately took to her feet and looked across at the packed Seanad gallery waved both her hands high in the air and smiled broadly.
Applause broke out across the chamber and soon the gallery rose to its feet in a standing ovation and the Seanadoirí responded in kind.
In her speech Seanadóir Black had said that the people of Gaza and the West Bank were watching the proceedings. I wondered were they watching the emotional scenes of joy in the chamber?
For the second time in as many months the Seanadoirí and the Seanad was leading the way for the people of Ireland and Europe on matters of national and international importance.
A few months ago, they had voted for and called on the Irish government to appeal, which it did, the decision of the European Court of Human Rights regarding the ‘Hooded Men’. Like the vote on banning illegal produce from the settlements the support for the ‘Hooded Men’ was an international human rights issue with significant implications for governments who practice torture and inhuman and degrading treatment and defenceless prisoners who experience it.
The OTB is a fundamental moral issue. It touched the psyche of the Seanadoirí where justice and injustice, freedom and Britain’s colonial history interplay.
The timbre of Simon Coveney’s voice suggested he too grappled with his conscience and his role as foreign minister and its “influence” beyond Irish shores, which guided his opposition to the Bill.
But this motion sought more than “influence”, important though that is.
It was in the words of Seanadóir Padraig Mac Lochlainn, the Seanad’s “Mary Manning Moment”.
In 1984, 21-year-old Dubliner, Mary Manning, led a strike in Dunnes Stores to ban goods from apartheid South Africa.
The strike led to the Irish government banning South African goods. Nelson Mandela told the strikers their action helped him keep going in jail.
The strike shook the edifice of the South African regime.
The former Attorney General and ‘eminence grise’ of the Seanad Michael McDowell provided the legal authority for the Bill’s advocates as he cogently refuted the current Attorney General’s advice to the minister for foreign affairs.
To make her point Seanadóir Maire Devine read a poem by a Palestinian activist Tawfig Zayyad, ‘Here We Will Stay’. ‘In Liddia, in Ramallah, in the Galilee, we shall remain/guard the shade of the fig and olive trees, ferment rebellion in our children as yeast in the dough’.
A united Seanad made support for the ‘Hooded Men’ a reality.
An almost united Seanad made support for the Palestinians also possible.
It is thanks to Fianna Fáil, who admirably resisted pressure to oppose the Bill.
This is Irish politics at its best – leading for others to follow – on defining moral issues of our time.
