PRESIDENT MICHEAL D Higgins has said neither the Taoiseach or the Tánaiste want a “silent president” and added that he is “reflecting the will of the people” who voted for him.

During a five-day visit to Rome, President Higgins criticised Israel on several occasions,  stating that it risked reducing the Geneva Convention to “tatters” and falling into the same “category” as Hamas with its actions in the besieged Gaza Strip.

He added that the blocking of essential aid into Gaza was “criminal”.

President Higgins also said that Ursula von der Leyen “wasn’t speaking for Ireland” during her recent visit to Israel.

During her visit, von der Leyen stated: “I know that how Israel responds will show that it is a democracy.”

President Higgins said these were a “thoughtless and even reckless set of actions” and other Irish politicians have also criticised her interventions, including Taoiseach Leo Varadkar who said her comments “lacked balance”.

Speaking to reporters yesterday on the sidelines of the World Food Forum in Rome, President Higgins said “foreign policy belongs to us all”.

He also said that the view that he should remain silent on these issues is an “extreme” one and added: “It is not the view I believe or either the Tánaiste or the Taoiseach that what you need is a silent president or a president that simply takes pieces of paper in front of him or her and signs them at the behest of somebody who is part of a department.”

President Higgins also told reporters: “I’ve been elected as President of Ireland twice, it’s a deep honour and a deep privilege and a great responsibility and I feel I have a responsibility and I think I am reflecting the will of the people who put me in Áras an Uachtaráin.”

Referencing the end of his term in 2025, President Higgins stated: “In a couple of years’ time people will be able to resolve this issue themselves in relation to whether they want a silent person, a puppet, or whether they want a president.”

The president added that he has campaigned on the issues he is speaking out about over the course of 50 years as a politician, political scientist and as a sociologist.

“I’m 82 and from about the age of 30, I’ve been an activist on all of the issues that we’ve been speaking about today,” said President Higgins.  

“I think people are entitled to their opinion that they would like somebody who (would keep silent) but I think they are very few.

“They’re entitled to it but we are living where we are.”

Meanwhile, President Higgins welcomed additional aid funding for Gaza from Ireland.

This week, Tánaiste Micheál Martin announced an “immediate” €13 million humanitarian aid package to help those inside the Gaza Strip.

“I saw the new figures and I very much commend them on giving the additional funding that is necessary,” said President Higgins yesterday.

He added that this additional funding “is now a matter of emergency”.

“The people who are in south Gaza were already under the deepest stress and their numbers have been increased by those who have gone south, more accurately would have been forced south,” said President Higgins, referencing recent Israeli orders for citizens in north Gaza to evacuate to the south.

“On the times I visited Gaza, it was to see how infrastructure would be built – schools, hospitals, and so forth – only to be, as part of the conflict, bombed and then replaced again,” said President Higgins.

“What is needed now is something much more than a pledge of money for reconstruction because that has happened in the past but the conflict was left in place.

“I believe myself that the best intervention is one that will address the issue consistently and in an informed way.”