Minister of State Marian Harkin has said she believes the forthcoming football fixtures between Ireland and Israel should not go ahead, a position in contrast with Taoiseach Micheál Martin.
Ireland’s recent draw in the Uefa Nations League has sparked controversy given the recent Gaza conflict.
On Saturday, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald also called on the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) not to play the matches, saying: “Israel should be given the red card.”
But the Taoiseach has come out in favour of the games, saying the FAI was correct to say they would go ahead. Speaking on Friday, Martin said: “It should go ahead, and I think the FAI has taken the correct decision to fulfil the fixture.”
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Martin said Ireland had not declared an official boycott of Israel and efforts were now concentrated on peace in the Middle East.
However, speaking on RTÉ Radio 1’s Saturday with Cormac Ó hEadhra programme, Harkin, an Independent member of Government, acknowledged that she was “at odds on a personal view” with the Taoiseach.
She initially told Ó hEadhra it was “very challenging when sport overlaps with politics”, and her view was “that it’s up to the FAI to decide about the fixture”.
However, when pressed she said: “I think that, personally, I wouldn’t go to it, and personally, if I were deciding – I’m not the FAI, I’m not Uefa, I’m not the Taoiseach, this is my personal view – yes – I wouldn’t agree that it should go ahead.
“That’s just my personal view and some people agree with that and others don’t.”
On the same programme Richard Boyd Barrett of People Before Profit said the matches “shouldn’t be played”.
“We need to stop normalising a state that has committed genocide and is guilty of decades of ethnic cleansing and apartheid,” he said.
Boyd Barrett commended “Irish football” for its stance on not wanting to play Israel and said the FAI agreed to play only because of the “double standards of Uefa, which expelled Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, but not Israel after its campaign in Gaza.
