Why has the Attorney General's advice changed? What legally has changed? The ICJ decision that all states must abstain from entering into economic and trade dealings and prevent trade or investment relations with Israel stands. That was the basis on which the previous advice of the Attorney General was made. In the previous advice of the Attorney General, he made no distinction between goods and services because legally in international law there is no distinction between trade in goods and services. Instead, he made the point that it would be a political choice to exclude services. The Government is making a political choice to exclude services to bow down before what Trump is asking for. Micheál Martin is quite open about it when he says it in the Dáil. Simon Harris tries to hide it a little bit but Micheál Martin is completely open; I can quote it. The Government is watering this down and reneging on an election promise made by both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. It is trying to find some legal advice to hide behind. It does not work because Spain, an EU country, is implementing a ban on services traded with the occupied territories. How can Spain do it under European law and yet the Irish Government is not able to do it?

Sentiment score: -0.08

Let us remind ourselves that last year saw not only the continuation of the genocide in Gaza, but a record number of home demolitions, settler attacks and orders for new illegal settlement construction in the West Bank. That is all continuing this year. The urgency of this Bill has never been greater. Since the so-called ceasefire, well over 500 Palestinians have been killed. Yesterday 18 Palestinians were killed. It is the position of the foreign affairs committee that the Government should include the question of services. It is the position of this Dáil, which the Minister of State did not vote against. The whole Dáil voted for a motion two months ago to say that it should include services and should be enacted before the end of the year. We are two months on and the Government is just kicking the can down the road trying to avoid taking action. The Minister of State made the point about all these other countries having different legal frameworks. That is fine, in terms of their domestic legislation. However, the Government's argument has also been that the problem here is European law. European law applies equally to all European countries. If we cannot do services in Ireland because of European law, it cannot be done in Spain either.

Sentiment score: -0.21