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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Chris Andrews (SF), Labour Panel

The Government regularly talks about the services element not being implementable, saying restricting trade in services is not implementable. In my view, that is misleading. Last December, the Spanish authorities wrote to seven online tourism platforms ordering them to remove hundreds of advertisements for tourism accommodation in illegal settlements.
As of today, six of those seven companies have complied. Ireland is effectively proposing to let similar companies based here, like Airbnb, off the hook. Will the Minister explain because I still cannot figure it out how Spain can do it and Ireland cannot? It comes down to a political decision taken by the Government to try to not offend anybody and at the same time, in doing so, offend everybody. Why not do it right and include services? Will the Minister explain why Spain can write to companies like Airbnb, stop them from advertising and we cannot? I still do not fully understand that.

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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