Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-15 ============================================================ Frances Black (IND), Industrial and Commercial Panel I move amendment No. 1: . In page 3, between lines 25 and 26, to insert the following: “ “Israeli settlement” means any residential area, outpost, or economic zone established, supported, protected or otherwise administered by Israel, in violation of international law, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (including East Jerusalem) that was brought under Israeli administration since June 1967;”. There are many issues to be dealt with today, as we all know, including the most substantial one of trade in services, which we will get to in good time. The first set of amendments are more technical but are very important. The aim is to ensure that no Palestinian goods are accidentally captured by this legislation. I fully accept that this is not the intention of the Government. I listened closely to the debates on this point on Committee Stage in the Dáil, but it is important to deal with it on the record of this House also. The Government Bill relies on a postcode system managed at EU level to identify illegal Israeli settlements. The postcode list is updated regularly and there is a clear logic to using it. However, as the Government has accepted, it is not perfect. About 90% of the postcodes map directly onto an illegal Israeli settlement, but about 10% do not. They may include some Palestinian communities, particularly in East Jerusalem. That is the concern. Everyone here today agrees these Palestinian communities, who have seen their homes encircled by illegal settlements and who face displacement nearly every day, should not be covered by this ban. That is not the intention of the legislation set out in its Long Title and is not what the Government intends, but what is written in the legislation really does matter. How do we prevent this? That is the question we must ask. To ensure Palestinian goods are not accidentally captured, we would prefer the legislation to make clear that it bans goods that meet two criteria instead of just one: first, that they are from a listed postcode and, second, that they are produced in an Israeli settlement. This is preferable to using the postcode system alone, which is a blunt tool. It is why my original occupied territories Bill was drafted differently and with great care. I give credit to Gerry Liston from GLAN and Sadaka for all their work on those elements, not forgetting my friend and colleague, Conor O'Neill, who has done phenomenal work on this issue. On Dáil Committee Stage, the Government responded to these concerns by stating this is not necessary because, for administrative reasons, Palestinian goods will simply be allowed through regardless of whether they are from a banned postcode. That is a concerning way of going about this and I will explain why. The logic is Israeli exporters trade under the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which governs trade with Israel, but Palestinian exporters trade under the EU-Palestinian Authority trade agreement, which governs trade with Palestine. The latter agreement uses different administrative arrangements and does not require Palestinian exporters to list the illegal settlement postcodes in the same way. The Government has stated customs officials will not seize the products because they will not have a banned postcode printed on the important document on the box. I accept this is likely in practice but it is still basically ignoring rather than applying the law. Regardless of whether the customs officials seize the goods or not, by a literal reading of the Bill, those Palestinian products would be banned by statute. That is what the Bill states clearly. Section 5 states: "the importation of goods originating in a postal code to which this Act applies is prohibited." There is no distinction made. It does not matter what trade deal you export them under, what is printed on the box or where the community is from. The statute says any goods originating in a specific geographic area, that is, the postcodes, are banned. Effectively, we would be banning all goods from these postal codes but working on the basis that Palestinian goods will slip through the net because they will not be marked with the relevant code on the box and thus will not be seized. They will still, by statute, be banned. I am not trying to be pedantic. This is genuinely concerning. I have spoken to the Minister personally. We have precedent in other jurisdictions for what can happen. Would anyone be surprised if opponents of Palestinian rights tried to make use of this ambiguity in the law? That is the question. Imagine if a scarf or a bottle of olive oil from a Palestinian community in one of these postcodes is allowed to enter Ireland. As the Minister says, it will not be seized by officials. It is then placed for sale in a shop here. What is stopping any individual from asking that it be removed from the shelf on the basis that, under section 5 of this Bill and under the Customs Act, as amended, it is banned. Does the Minister accept they would have at least a plausible case under a literal reading of the law? We must remember the Bill amends the Customs Act 2015. It therefore bans not just the import of goods but also possession, custody, transport, deposit or otherwise dealing with any banned goods. As such, it, like the original occupied territories Bill, bans their importation but also their handling or sale. It will be an offence to sell that bottle of Palestinian olive oil if it comes from a listed postcode, regardless of how it arrives into the country or what is printed on the box. We therefore propose a straightforward, workable amendment that would leave no doubt and solve the issue based on the precedent in proposed Government legislation in the Netherlands and Belgium of applying a two-test section on the goods before banning them, instead of using postal codes alone. I do not see any good reason we would not do this, rather than leaving a clear ambiguity in the law. --- 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/2026-07-15/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:52:16+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-07-15