Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Bill 2026: Report and Final Stages
Dail Éireann — 2026-07-07
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Paul Murphy (PBP), Dublin South-West

I will be brief because I want to get onto the meat of the debate, services. I will re-emphasise the point I made on Committee Stage. Section 5(1) of the Bill is very clear - there is no exemption that deals with this in terms of subsection (2) - and states that the importation of goods originating in a postal code to which this Act applies is prohibited. It is written very clearly.
In the case of a Palestinian farmer in one of the postal codes in the Bill, according to any reasonable reading of the law, the importation of the goods from the postal code to which the Act applies is prohibited. The legislation does not specify whether it is being done through the EU-Israel Association Agreement rather than via another method. It refers to the importation of goods from the postal codes being prohibited. I accept it is not the intention of the Government to do this but I do find it strange. We were told on Committee Stage that the provision would be interpreted in the context of the full Long Title and that, therefore, it is about the illegal occupied territories and so on. It seems strange to me to argue that when we have a much neater way of doing things, as outlined in the amendment and as has been done by a series of other countries in Europe.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-07-07/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:07+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-07