Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-15
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Michael McDowell (IND), National University of Ireland

I welcome the Minister here. I fully accept that the Government in general terms follows the advice of the Attorney General. I also fully accept the proposition that, in general terms, the advice given to the Government by the Attorney General is first of all confidential and, second, generally not published. I have no problem with those propositions. However, I fully agree with every single word Senator Black has just spoken, and the reason I want to intervene at this point is as follows.
First, I want the Minister to tell the House, has any EU institution communicated to Ireland in any way that Ireland, as a member state, is prohibited as a matter of EU law from prohibiting trade in services emanating from or provided by entities in the occupied territories?
Has anybody in Europe ever said we may not do this? I would like a clear yes-no answer to that. If we have been told we cannot do it, that is one thing, because the Attorney General would then have to say that we are facing a challenge from the EU. The issue then moves from being one in which it is possible to hold bona fide views on either side of the question. The real question is this. Has any EU institution communicated to Ireland in any way that members states are prohibited as a matter of EU law from prohibiting trade and services emanating from, or provided by entities in, the occupied territories? If so, we would like to hear about it, and we are entitled to hear about it. That is not a secret. It is not confidential. If somebody in Europe says we cannot do this and may not do it as a matter of EU law, then the Irish people are entitled to know that is what the European institutions have said. That is the first thing.
Turning to the Attorney General, has the Attorney General categorically advised the Government that any member state that bans trade in services emanating from, or provided by entities in, the occupied territories would be in breach of EU law? Has he said that in his view, as a matter of European law, no member state can do this? Has he said that categorically, or has he said there are two views on this and that he favours one view rather than another? It is possible the European Court of Justice would take one view rather than another. However, if I were asked by the Government to argue the case, I would be happy to argue that no member state can lawfully ban trade in services with entities in the occupied territories.
The litmus test is the third point I would like clarification on. Senator Black described how Spain has limited the advertisement by companies like Airbnb of residential services in the occupied territories. If a member state like Spain were brought up before and challenged by the Court of Justice of the European Union for breaching EU law on that account - the issue arose in the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg as to whether that was lawful - would Ireland go in there and say that our view is that Spain cannot do this, and urge the court to tell Spain it is acting unlawfully? Would the Attorney General, who has gone to the Court of Justice of the European Union, say that? Would he say that he wants to tog out, so to speak, against Spain on this issue and represent it as Ireland's view that Spain may not take even the limited steps it has taken in relation to services? That is the question. Would Ireland intervene in those proceedings to say that no member state can do this as a matter of European law and that we invite the European Court of Justice to rule that Spain is acting in violation of European law. If we would not do that, why is that the case? If we say it is so important that Ireland cannot do it but that it is not so important that any other member state can even take modest steps in this regard, then what is the explanation for Ireland's attitude? For instance, has the Attorney General said that it would be unlawful by law to do in Ireland what the Spanish have done, which is to prohibit advertisement of Airbnb-type services where they are located in illegally occupied territories? Are we to believe that Ireland's position is a rigid position? Or are we to believe, which I think is more likely, that it is an on-balance view of the Attorney General one way rather than another, but that either outcome is arguable if the matter were challenged in European law? I would love to see what the Attorney General would say, in his professional advice to the Government, is the likely outcome of such a challenge at this stage. I think we are entitled to know if we are going to have the Attorney General's advice given to us as a reason for not dealing with a ban on trade. We are entitled to have a clear view as to the strength, force and determination of Ireland to adhere to this position if the matter becomes the subject of a dispute between the Commission and, for example, Spain in the European Court of Justice.
There is another question I would like the answer to. This legislation has passed all Stages in Dáil Éireann and come to us for consideration. Did the Taoiseach, pursuant to the Constitution, provide a money message in respect of this Bill? We were told at one stage that was a reason it could not even get going in the Dáil. I would like to know if there is a money message for this legislation. Has the Taoiseach said that this involves a potential charge or appropriation on the people and that the risk of some kind of fine or whatever coming from the European Union is such that he is recommending it for the purposes of the particular article of the Constitution? The absence of such a message was clearly identified as a reason Senator Black's Bill could not go anywhere in the past. We have to remember, as I said on Second Stage, that the Fianna Fáil Party supported Senator Black's Bill then. The Government was in a minority in Dáil Éireann. The fig leaf it resorted to, to prevent the Fianna Fáil members doing in the Dáil what they had done here, was to signal that the legislation as proposed by Senator Black would require a money message and that such would not be forthcoming from the Government. I would like to know if that has happened on this occasion.
The American ambassador to Ireland has described even this legislation as a stunt. It is not normal behaviour for any diplomat to say to a sovereign parliament that it is engaging in a stunt, or to accuse a government, even in respect of goods, to be engaging in a stunt. Services can be easily relocated as to their origin. If I live in Ranelagh and I provide an opinion as a barrister, it could be provided in the Four Courts or it could be provided in my house. It could be provided in my holiday home if I want. Services are so mobile, except for the kinds of services the Spanish are prohibiting.
If you are talking about the difficulty and impracticality of deciding where services are originating from, what is the realistic, truthful political justification for saying we cannot ban trade in them as emanating from one part of the Middle East, namely, the unlawfully occupied territories, rather than the rest of Israel, which would not be caught by it? I do not know. I do not want to belittle anything but if you are talking about tokenism, that cuts both ways. If the Minister is saying it is difficult to police, that cuts both ways in relation to services because the simple fact, as I read it, is that virtually any service can be provided anywhere, even if the people who have actually done the work are located somewhere else. Working from home is one thing; working from an illegally occupied settlement is another thing. Proving where the service actually emanates in the great majority of professional services is virtually impossible, unless the person providing the service is blatantly stamping it all over their contractual documents or whatever that it emanated from one place or another. If this is as the American ambassador so unfortunately, rudely and disrespectfully refers to as a stunt as regards goods, the suggestion that somehow its extension to services would present special difficulties cuts both ways. We can say, along with the Spaniards, that something that is clearly identifiable as the provision of a service is to be prohibited as regards its provision in the State for reward, but surely, in practical terms, being honest and truthful, it would be so easily evaded if it was applied to services and that including services is highly unlikely to have any significant practical effect.
There are a lot of people who went public - some of them to my gravest disappointment; I think they were cowardly – and said if we keep on with this Bill, even in respect of goods, the consequences will be terrible for Ireland. They have not been, and they will not be. We will not be the subject of retaliatory this or that. America, because of the situation that now exists there, is a different place from the place it was even a year ago. The notion that Ireland will be punished by tariffs or anything else or that a non-investment will take place in Ireland because of a view that we take about whether this Bill should or should not apply to services is fanciful in the extreme. The point that annoyed me about the Chicken Littles who said the sky was going to fall if we proceeded with this legislation is they have now gone silent because the Government has decided to proceed with it as regards goods. We should be courageous enough to extend it to services because the sky ain't going to fall on that account either.

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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