Middle East
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-21
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Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (SF), Cork South-Central

I will use the phrase "the occupied territories Bill" as shorthand. I appreciate the Government's Bill has a different title, but that is what it is commonly understood as. The Minister's statements are difficult to reconcile. She has come here and said we will have something in a couple of weeks. What I interpreted from her interview with Virgin Media during the week was that we will see what happens at a European level and then might act. There have been contradictory statements over the course of the past couple of years. If you look at it in terms of a timeline, there were commitments in parties' manifestos before the general election to pass the occupied territories Bill. There was no qualification or equivocation about trade or services. The programme for Government and the Department of foreign affairs strategy to 2028 include references to the enactment of the occupied Palestinian territories legislation by 2028. This year's strategy talks about progressing the occupied territories Bill by 2029. The Government is putting it back by a year and talking about progressing rather than enacting. There seems to be constant watering down. The Minister is talking about a couple of weeks, but I am not sure she would have said that at the start of this week if we had not seen those scenes.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-21/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:58+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-21