Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Bill 2026: Second Stage Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-08 ============================================================ Alice-Mary Higgins (IND), National University of Ireland I must disagree with one of my colleagues from the foreign affairs committee, who I acknowledge backed the unanimous report that we put forward, in respect of the suggestion that the Attorney General's advice trumps any other legal opinion, because it does not. The Attorney General's advice does not trump an opinion of the International Court of Justice, and even Trump does not trump an International Court of Justice opinion. The International Court of Justice is clear on this and by the way, while we do not know what advice the Attorney General has given the Government, we know what the Attorney General said in public previously. The Attorney General was pretty clear on Ireland's view of the obligations and I note these were the obligations that existed prior to the International Court of Justice's opinion. When we - Senator Black, I and others - first brought this Bill, we were clear on international law then. It is has not changed. What changed was the Attorney General's opinion and it moved into alignment with ours. The Attorney General stated: In Ireland’s view, these obligations require all states ... to review their trading relationships ... and to take steps to prevent trade that assists in the maintenance of the situation created by the settlement activity ... That is what the Attorney General said and that was just on trade. When the opinion came out, the Minister, Deputy McEntee, clearly stated that the only interpretation of it is that it relates to all trade and we have a Bill that the Government claims that it wants it to provide for compliance with the international obligations that were already there but that were made explicit in that opinion. We have seen, however, a dilution where we have gone from a Bill to provide for compliance to something that might contribute positively to Ireland's efforts to comply. The Minister acknowledged on Committee Stage in the Dáil that this is something that would only achieve partial compliance. There is a constitutional question here. If the Government is doing something and it says that this is what is required to comply and if the Attorney General says it in front of the International Court of Justice but then it goes ahead to only partially comply, there is a problem there. I am going to come back to the two-pronged approach in a second but I want to briefly point to the reasons that are given here, which include being legally defensible, practically enforceable and mindful of Ireland's wider economic interests. On the issue of legal defensibility, because we were so confident with the crystal-clear legal advice that we got, the committee saw a legal challenge as an opportunity to set a precedent at the EU level and force the European Union to act, because it is not just about persuasion. If we get a ruling from the European Court of Justice, which the committee believed and all of the experts who went on the record believed, it will oblige EU action. We would not just have to try to persuade it and bring it slowly, it would oblige it. There was also concern expressed at the committee about the danger of bad precedent. Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh spoke about the significance of the good precedent of Ireland passing legislation that is squarely in compliance with its obligations and about the flip side if Ireland passed selective or restrictive legislation that did not fully comply with its obligations. She said it could have a negative impact and could be used by other states to say "this much, but no more". The legally defensible piece is clear. The practically enforceable piece is something that we are doing already on Russia. It can be done. Spain is doing it, and it is recognised as a measure having equivalent effect. The principle is there and it can be done. That leaves us with Ireland's wider economic and employment interests. Is this to do with money? Are we going to say that economic interests trump the dead children that everybody talks about how they care about them? Does it trump the stolen land and robbed ground? That is not acceptable to the Irish public, and it does not give the public what it deserves. Colonialism is never acceptable and that is why our original Bill also referred to every occupied territory, including Western Sahara and Western Papua, because the fact that money can be made out of it is never a justification for the trashing of human rights and the making of pieces. It is not a justification now, and it is not one that will wash with the public. We will have an opportunity to improve it. I have a final question. If the Government's dual-pronged approach does not deliver a ban on services from Europe during the six months of the Presidency, will it come back and bring it through the Legislature? If Gaza and Lebanon become the subject of settlement, will it also bring them in? Those are the questions that I will be asking and looking for hard answers on at Committee Stage. --- 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