People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy confirms no other Irish citizens are detained in Egypt ahead of return home
However, while Mr Murphy is set to fly home and will arrive in Dublin on Tuesday afternoon, not every Irish citizen who was in Cairo will be returning today.
Last week, Mr Murphy and members of an activist group had their passports taken and were held after attempting to walk to Rafah as part of a protest March highlighting the blockage of aid into Gaza.
He was then detained for a second time in Cairo on Monday when he went to a police station to retrieve his mobile phone, which was being held by authorities.
'No other Irish citizens are still detained, thankfully. Again, there are many Irish citizens who are not leaving today, will still be there for a period of time and I'm kind of conscious about their safety and not putting them in in any jeopardy,' Mr Murphy told RTÉ's Morning Ireland.
Mr Murphy said his second detention was a 'slow bureaucratic process' and things were taking a long time to resolve.
'But then, I asked to leave and was told that I couldn't leave and the whole time they had my passport. It became clear that I was being detained, as unfortunately hundreds of others have been detained in Egypt, many people deported.'
He said his experience in Egypt 'pales into insignificance compared to what's happening in Gaza'.
'Just yesterday, 38 Palestinians were killed while queuing for aid. There's now over 300 Palestinians have been killed in those circumstances in the last three weeks,' he said.
'And the purpose of our global march to Gaza, which involved over 4,000 people coming here to Egypt from over 60 countries, was really to highlight the forced starvation that is happening and to call for a lifting of the blockade and allowing aid to flow.'
Mr Murphy said he was held for around nine hours when he was detained for a second time and due to the slow nature of the process, it was unclear at first whether he was detained or not.
It then became clear to him that he had been detained again because when he asked to leave the police station, he was told he was not allowed to.
'From our perspective, I mean we came here, the 4,000 people to try to march to Rafah in order to highlight what is happening in Gaza.
'Obviously, we're disappointed that we didn't get to Rafah, but we have had probably the largest international people-powered coalition for Palestine in a very, very long time.
'I think we did raise awareness about what is happening. And so, in the context of the severe Egyptian repression that is taking place, I'm conscious that look, there's still people in detention. There's still many, many people who won't be flying home.'
While there will not be another attempt to enter Rafah, Mr Murphy said activists will now turn their attention to events like a planned meeting between European foreign ministers and the Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa'ar in Brussels next week.
'For us, the main pressure we need to have is on Israel, to stop what it's doing in Gaza and on our own Government to stop their complicity.
'Obviously, many western governments and many of the people over there are coming from countries where the governments are actively arming and funding Israel.'
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