Proposed Legislation
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-05
============================================================

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (SF), Cork South-Central

The key principle that underlines the occupied territories Bill is that the International Court of Justice case clearly states that trade with those occupied territories is illegal. The position of the Department of foreign affairs and the Government has always been that we should not trade with these territories. I see no reason that there should not be a criminal sanction for those who choose to do that. It is very much in that realm. This is not necessarily about catching every transaction; it is about ensuring that where people do that, they can potentially face prosecution. Not being able to capture every incident can be true of any criminal act. This is why it is so important to have this legislation on the Statute Book.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-05/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:36+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-05