I understand he may not be able to turn up. I will speak as long as I am able. Like everyone here, we are appalled at the Israeli state’s absolute dismantling of the West Bank over the years, whether it is allowing settlers to de facto annex parts of it in their own right or whether it is the state policy of dividing it up so as to make the West Bank no longer viable. This has been going on for decades and it is absolutely abysmal and reprehensible. It is on the same level as they have been treating the people of Gaza, although the more recent behaviour and genocide there goes to a totally new level. The West Bank has been subject to a systemic policy over many years. I had conversations with Senator Black when she was trying to get her Bill agreed to by the Government. She was quite optimistic some years ago. She can speak for herself - I am not speaking for her – but the feeling I got from her was that she knew there would have to be some level of compromise or discussion on what legally could be and could not be done, but I do not think we have brought the ban as far as we can. Yes, arguably Ireland has done more than any country in the world to call out the Israeli atrocities as a neutral, non-aligned state with a history of brutal colonialism. We have done a fantastic job but at the same time we cannot slap ourselves on the back because it seems, within a European context, we are one of only a handful of countries with any moral compass. Whether it is the guilt of the Germans, the Danish rescue of Jewish citizens during the Second World War, the very close geographic relationship that Cyprus has with Israel, or the Austrian guilt, there are a lot of reasons, including association with the Holocaust, why other countries would not want to be seen to call out Israel for doing exactly the same thing in more recent years. However, countries like Spain and Norway have called out the Israeli state. We have been accused of antisemitism by the Israeli state, we have been put under pressure by the US Administration but we have persisted. This is where I want to praise the Government because we still persisted with our ICJ support and in finally getting to this Bill. I welcome that this Bill has finally come to the House. If it comes to a vote on whether to support the Bill, I will certainly vote for it. However, as my colleagues have said, in banning goods alone, the Bill is not even going a fraction of the way because Ireland’s trade with Israel is mostly in services. According to the CSO, between 68% and 72% of Ireland’s exports to Israel in recent years have been in services and not goods. However we look at it, that means the Bill leaves the majority of relevant economic activity untouched. While a lot of the arguments here may be symbolic, they must have some meaning. We are arguing among ourselves as to which is the best body to decide on whether to play the Israeli football team, but this is something that has many times more legal issues. This is not a theoretical debate. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, in its 2023 update on companies operating in settlements, stated that digital, financial and logistical services are structural enablers of settlement expansion. That is from its database of business enterprise 2023. Therefore, when we exclude services we are basically excluding the sectors that sustain settlement economies: the cloud hosting, the payment processing, the tourism platforms, the Airbnbs, which have been mentioned before, and property management systems. All the people who know about this, the international legal experts, have been clear on this point. Professor Marco Sassòli, one of the world’s leading scholars on occupation law, wrote in the International Review of the Red Cross that state responsibility extends to any economic activity, goods or services, that contributes to maintaining unlawful situations. Dr. Valentina Azarova, in a 2020 legal briefing for the European Parliament, stated service provision is a core component of modern supply chains and cannot be excluded from due diligence obligations. If we want a Bill that actually stops Irish economic activity from supporting the illegal settlements, then we have to include services or at least we have to try to do so. That is what I mean when I say we should push the boat out. Maybe there are barriers, such as those the Government has spoken of before, but let us push it out and see the legal action taken against us. If we take the business argument about how it might impact on businesses in Ireland, we could phase in the services aspect of it. The ICJ 2024 ruling, which others have referred to in relation to our legal obligations, says that governments cannot be prevented by the European Union from acting alone. The advisory opinion states that all states are under an obligation not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by the illegal presence of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory. That is basically the highest court in the world interpreting international law, which supersedes European law. Even the European Journal of International Law, in its 2024 commentary on the ruling, said that the ICJ opinion removes ambiguity regarding member state competence to restrict trade linked to illegal settlements. The former UN special rapporteur told a Chatham House briefing that states are required to take unilateral measures to avoid contributing to internationally wrongful acts. I also want to reference the former Attorney General and now Senator Michael McDowell, who knows not just a little about the law. He said that nothing in EU law prevents Ireland from acting where international law imposes obligations. We have a legal and moral obligation. To make the Bill robust we have to reference the ICJ ruling in the preamble and we have to try to target the corporations in the occupied territories and not ordinary people. It is a fair point that we have not gone into the nuances of the legislation and how this law might impact on ordinary people in the occupied territories. That needs to be looked at in more detail as we get to Committee and Report Stages. I focus specifically on the argument about how we might annoy the USA and put ourselves in great peril. Some Members on the other benches have argued that strengthening the Bill will irreparably damage our relationship with the US. We know how tied up the current US Administration is with the Israeli regime. We have seen it with the war on the admittedly despotic and murderous Iranian regime. However, it is an unjust and illegal war and Netanyahu's atrocities in Lebanon have basically been sanctioned by the Trump administration. If it stopped supplying weapons, they would dry up soon enough. The argument is put that this will have a chilling effect on the relationship between Ireland and the US. I did some research, and I found out that the US already restricts imports from illegal settlements. A 2016 directive from US Customs and Border Protection stated that products from Western Sahara must be marked to indicate their origin. That is similar to what we are looking at. The US, when it suits it, will create its own types of laws. We have seen that in international law. The Trump administration basically says that what it says goes, rather than trying to take a multipolar approach where everyone has input and basic international law is respected. We have taken independent positions before and been criticised. One was the recognition of Palestine. You could argue even that could have angered the Americans to the point where we would not be their best buddies any more and they would impose some sort of sanction on us. That did not happen. We did not support the illegal invasion of Iraq which led to a lot more people being killed than there were lives saved. If you look at the Realpolitik, the current President of the US is a bit of a lame duck. The mid-term elections will provide a massive kick in the face for his administration's policies. While there is a strong Israeli lobby in the US, the bottom line for the companies operating here is profit. What the collective Opposition is requesting in terms of services is not impacting in any major way on US companies' operations globally. That argument does not hold up to scrutiny. The political threat is that it will impact us economically, but the threat being made does not have any economic impact on the US companies. They are making a political argument rather than one that is intrinsically talking about how their bottom line will be impacted by our unilateral move. If, as the Minister says, it is not legally possible to do what the Opposition is arguing for by expanding the Bill to cover services, then I go back to the point I made a few minutes ago that we will be found out through some form of legal action that I do not believe it is possible to take. There is the argument about moral and sinister threats not to annoy our big cousins in the United States. I think we are bigger than that. We have stood up for ourselves before without major clawback. The Israelis will kick and scream. We will be called antisemites even more. However, we will basically be living up to our principles as an independent state. I ask the Minister, on Committee Stage, to maybe explore and support Opposition proposals to include some level of services in the legislation. As it stands, this legislation is one third effective because two thirds of the on-the-ground impact relates to services. We can hold our hands up and say Kumbaya, we have done our little bit and we are all great. We have to remember that it has taken years to get to this point. It has taken years to get to a watered down Bill. That is shocking in its own right. While I welcome the legislation and will vote for whatever finally comes through the Houses because it sends a message, until that point we have a moral obligation to put the international legal argument, as well as the moral argument, that this should be the strongest legislation possible. If others can prove there are holes in it, let them come back after and refer it to the President to see if it is constitutional or not. That is something we should do. We should make the legislation as strong as we believe it can be. If we have a 70:30 or 30:70 uncertainty on the services aspect, let us put that to the test. Otherwise, it will be a watered down Bill. I urge the Minister, even at this stage, to try to strengthen it.

Sentiment score: -0.06