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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Neale Richmond (FG), Dublin Rathdown

Respectfully, I did not interrupt the Deputy. I waited for my opportunity to intervene. This legislation is absolutely cast iron in line with international and EU law. It moves us towards our full obligations under the ICJ opinion. That is something we have to reflect on. However, there are issues with services, which have been well elucidated.
When it comes to the example of Spain, Deputies cannot come into this Chamber and say that a royal degree amendment to a consumer Act, which has only resulted in some 60 or 70 advertisements being pulled down, equates to a blanket ban on services.
In the time remaining to me, I must refer to what I can only call a conspiracy theory argument put forward consistently that somehow this legislation is at the behest of the US administration or has been put in in such a manner because of the US administration. As Minister of State with responsibility for the diaspora, I think I have travelled to the United States six times in the past calendar year. Not once has this legislation been brought up with me by lawmakers, members of the business community, multinationals or anyone else. Ultimately, the Government made a decision on foot of the ICJ opinion that there was an opportunity to take the good work done by Senator Black and introduce legislation that would get us to some degree there. Parallel to that twin track approach - whoever came up with it first - is a very clear policy choice to proceed with legislation on a domestic basis in relation to goods and to continue to raise this on an EU basis and build an alliance and coalition to get real EU action like we achieved when we managed to get 18 other member states to come along with us and open up the EU-Israel Association Agreement in the first place.

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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