Why is Ireland not taking part in this year's Eurovision?

One of them is Oliver Sears, who has been in the country about 40 years and is the founder of Ireland" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="127544" data-entity-type="organization">Holocaust Awareness Ireland. He said he has always been opposed to cultural boycott."[Jewish people in Ireland] have no power and we don't really count in retail politics and don't really count at all. That very much feeds into how we are feeling as a community, we feel dismissed, our concerns disbelieved and it's been horribly isolating," he told BBC News NI.He questioned why any broadcaster would take "collective punishment"."You are saying to a whole country, 20% of whom are Arab Muslims, that you are not good enough. "I don't agree with it, it's not going to save a single Palestinian life."Asked if he thinks Ireland is antisemitic, Sears said Jewish people have experienced a "whole plethora of antisemitic incidents, language" which represents "a chronic lack of knowledge and ignorance about Jews, about antisemitism itself, about Zionism"."Those three words, Jews, antisemitism and Zionism have all been weaponised and distorted."