Tánaiste Micheál Martin has indicated that the Government will not be referring Israel to the International Criminal Court over the conduct of its war on Hamas in Gaza.
While the Government has yet to adopt a firm position, Mr Martin said today that the ICC current Prosecutor, Karim Khan, has confirmed that there is an active investigation already under way regarding the situation in Palestine.
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has called on the Government to refer Israel to the ICC, and her party will table a motion in the Dáil later this week.
She told her party Ard Fheis last night that the Israeli bombardment of Gaza amounted to war crimes.
In his statement, the Tánaiste said: "Ireland will continue to fully support the ICC in its vitally important work in investigating all the situations before it, whether that be in Ukraine, Darfur, Palestine, Libya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo or elsewhere."
He added: "All victims, everywhere, are equally deserving of justice and accountability."
Ms McDonald said the Government "could and should" refer Israel to the ICC.
Speaking on RTÉ's The Week In Politics, Ms McDonald said the Government needed to act and must support the Sinn Féin motion next week.
"I think the reception that the Palestinian Ambassador got at our Ard Fheis was reflective of wider Irish sentiment, which is horrified at what is going on, the bombardment of Gaza, the sheer brutality of it," said Ms McDonald.
She added that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not becoming reflective but is "digging in, becoming more entrenched".
She said she could not imagine what the families of the hostages taken by Hamas are going through but added that there is no safe place now in Gaza.
"The safest way out of all of this and to get those hostages home, including young Emily [Hand], is for the bombardment to stop, for ceasefires to be called, for some level of quiet to be established, and then, of course, there is a huge amount of work that needs to be done," she added.
Speaking on RTÉ's The Week in Politics, Simon Harris Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science and Justice, said that the Government wanted an immediate ceasefire, for all hostages to be released and to have Irish citizens freed from Gaza.
Responding to calls on expelling the Israeli ambassador, he said that would not further any of those causes.
"Diplomacy is not the equivalent of endorsement. If we expel our ambassador the immediate next action would be to expel the Irish ambassador from Israel.
"At a time when we are trying to get our citizens out of Gaza, at a time when we need to keep communication open..."
He said they cannot get distracted from the focus, which is a ceasefire.
"A war on terror has now become a war on children, and the scenes that we are seeing are horrifying."
He said the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel was horrific and barbaric, but what is happening in Gaza has become a war on children.
"Whether you are an Israeli child who has been taken hostage, whether you are a Palestinian child living in fear a child, is a child, is a child."
Regarding the International Criminal Court, he said there has
been an active investigation since 2021 in relation to Palestine, and that included the activities in Gaza.
"What we have to ask ourselves though is, what can be achieved by cutting off diplomatic links other than perhaps feeling a little bit better for a few moments when we have citizens there in that region, we have journalists there in that region..."
He said they could not brush over what happened to Israel - "was one of the most horrific terrorist attacks experienced in their history."
Minister Harris said we can be "proud as a people to live in a country where there is a political consensus around the need for an immediate ceasefire."
