Bray Sinn Féin Councillors Dermot ‘Daisy’ O’Brien and Mick Ryan were happy to see their Motion relating to the development of a Rights Based Ethical Procurement Policy passed at the Wicklow County Council meeting on Monday April 8th.
According to Cllr Daisy O’Brien, “Statements and symbolic measures have their place in the struggles against oppression across the world but policy positions also have their place. We brought this motion to ensure that Wicklow County Council would play its role in ensuring that we are not complicit in any way, shape or form with human rights atrocities, ethnic cleansing or genocide. Every time a structure of power endorses or enables acts of genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, or human rights violations by its action or inaction or passivity we are accountable. This Council should develop an EPP that places us firmly and unequivocally on the right side of international law, on the ethical side of systematic violations of human rights and also gives us the scope to look at how we might be passively supporting these unconscionable acts.”
Cllr O’Brien continues. “After six months of relentless bombardment the death toll in Gaza now sits at the equivalent of the population of my hometown Bray. Imagine every single man, woman and child in Bray murdered by the army of a state with total impunity. The vast majority are innocent. In Gaza and the West Bank, nurses, doctors, first responders, carers, teachers, journalists, students, volunteers all slaughtered in the name of a Zionist, ethno nationalist, religious supremacist, colonial project while the world leaders of the west stand by and watch. While some might believe that this is not within the remit of the County Council, I would argue that we all have a moral and legal responsibility to take every action necessary to prevent genocide.”