Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Bill 2026: Second Stage Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-08 ============================================================ Patricia Stephenson (SD), Labour Panel I cannot stand here and congratulate the Government on finally catching up with the rest of the country. The Minister said that people think the Bill does not go far enough. It is not that people think the Bill does not go far enough; international law states that the Bill does not go far enough. The Government has been dragged into taking action by the public rather than showing real active and proactive leadership. I commend Senator Black on the Bill and I commend Mr. Conor O'Neill for all the work they have done on that. It was passed in 2019 and, seven years later, we are looking at this watered-down version that is a husk of the original legislation. At the same time as the Government has been slow-walking the occupied territories Bill, we have watched a genocide being live-streamed to our mobile phones. We have seen over 73,000 Palestinian men, women and children slaughtered. Of them, 20,000 were children. More than 1,000 people have been slaughtered since the pretend ceasefire. We read the independent report on the violence committed specifically against children by the Israel Defense Forces, IDF, including the horrifying story of a ten-day old baby shot in the head while being held in its mother's arms, breast-feeding. I do not claim any monopoly on empathy. We often hear from Government members that they think the Opposition feels it has some sort of monopoly on empathy. I do not think that but, in the face of all the horror and in the face of endless impunity for the Israeli State, I cannot fathom why the Government is choosing the weakest form of this legislation. I really think it is shameful. What message does it send to Palestinians? "We have seen the oppression and slaughter of your people, the genocide you have experienced and the violent attacks on your land. We are very sorry but we are actually not willing to meet our own obligations under international law." Let us be clear: the Bill here today with the exclusion of services will not bring us into compliance with our own obligations. It is only partially compliant with the ICJ opinion. Yesterday in the Dáil the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, mentioned that this Bill is not in breach of international law. I think he mentioned that we fulfil those obligations according to the EU. I reject that. The Department and the Minister, Deputy McEntee, have said that we are not complying with international law. The Department and the Minister, Deputy McEntee, have brazenly admitted that we do not comply. In fact, in the Minister's contributions today she talked about contributing to Ireland's efforts to uphold and comply with international law. It is just not the case. EU legal experts in the committee said that the EU courts have said that the law must be read in a way that allows member states like Ireland to meet our international obligations. That is the EU court's ruling when it comes to international law. EU public policy exemption extends to all trade. There is no distinction in international law around goods and services. That is an arbitrary distinction the Government is presenting us with. We heard from Professor Panos Koutrakos and Professor Takis Tridimas that public policy provides a derogation not only from the free movement of goods but also the freedom to provide services. There is no basis and no distinction in international law. I do not know why we are tying ourselves in knots or why the Government is tying itself in knots trying to make this distinction. I find it astonishing that we are having this conversation and having to fight for services to be included. There is a genocide taking place and we are having these arbitrary discussions around types of trade while we are knowingly pursuing legislation that will not bring us into compliance with international law. It is even in the Long Title of the Bill, which refers to it being an Act to provide compliance by the State with international legal obligations, but we are not doing that. I do not really believe Ireland can keep talking about being a defender of international law and a champion of international law when this Bill does not meet our most basic obligations and our most minimum standards. I would like to know if the Government has considered the breach to our own Constitution that this watered-down Bill might represent, specifically Article 29.3 which commits Ireland to respecting international law as its rule of conduct in its relations with other states. With that in mind, we have the Minister on record saying that this Bill only brings us into partial compliance. I find that absolutely incredible. I refer to the risk into which that places us by acknowledging that we are passing legislation that does not meet our obligations. That is happening when international laws are under threat from all sides. We talk about international law losing its credibility or being weakened. International law is stuff that is written down. It is standards. International law, in and of itself, is not failing. Leaders are failing to uphold it and we will be participating in the degradation of international law with this legislation. We are setting a ceiling. We are not being ambitious or trying to create a new brilliant norm that other countries will follow. What I am deeply worried about is that we are effectively signalling to the EU Commission that when, as I imagine it will, presents proposals down the line for an EU-wide ban on trade with the occupied territory in Palestine, we are basically saying that we are fine if we just go with goods. That is what we are saying. We are saying that we are okay with that. We are signalling a low bar rather than the high bar that we could be setting. I want to mention Spain. It has come up in other contexts. Hundreds and hundreds of advertisements have been taken down since December, not just a handful, it is hundreds. We have that evidence and we can talk about it at Committee Stage next week. Hand on heart, do we believe this Bill is doing everything in our power to stop the continuation of the Israeli illegal settlements in occupied Palestine? Can we really say that hand on heart when 70% of the trade is with services? Gaza is rubble. The Palestinian people are being displaced by the hundreds of thousands. Their land is being violently taken by the Israeli-sanctioned violent settler regime and we are giving a pittance with this legislation. Yes, EU collective action would be fabulous. Over 70,000 people are dead and we have not succeeded in EU collective action. Let us set a high bar and include services. There is still time for us to stop this in its tracks and produce good legislation that we can all be proud of and other countries will copy, not the lowest standard possible. --- 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/seanad/2026-07-08/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:10+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-07-08