Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Bill 2026: Report and Final Stages Dail Éireann — 2026-07-07 ============================================================ Ruth Coppinger (PBP), Dublin West In the previous amendment, the Minister of State was sort of reprimanding people for using particular words. I am sorry but he is not going to get a polite debate because we should be absolutely enraged about what is happening to Palestine and the lack of Government action. I urge everybody not to have a polite debate. This has been one of the biggest issues in this country and, indeed, the world for two and a half years. This Government has a chance to do something and it is choosing not to. It is not that the Government saw a chance to build on what Senator Black has done, and I commend the Senator on her amazing work and patience on this issue. I was in the Dáil when the Minister of State’s side of the House, and Fianna Fáil, jumped up and down about this Bill. Years ago, it said they would bring in an occupied territories Bill and now what it has is not even a mutation of that. The Minister of State said there is no concern among American big business about this Bill, following the meetings he had. If the Minister of State does a quick Google search, he will see a multitude of articles about it. I have one where the Department of foreign affairs warned about the impact on business and how it might be perceived by American multinationals and big business if the original Bill had been passed. There are numerous articles and officials from the Department of foreign affairs warned about that. I do not know how the Minister of State is meeting people who are not saying anything like that while Department officials are meeting people from a completely different background. There is absolutely no question that this Bill has been neutered because of pressure from big business. The Minister of State should not insult our intelligence by saying anything else. That is what has happened. Dr. Abu Safiya has been mentioned and I hope this Government has made representations about his treatment and detention. What has the Government done about Palestine because I am wracking my brains. Every time we say something, we are told by other Ministers that the Palestinian Authority thinks Ireland is amazing. I talk to Palestinians a lot because there are Palestinians in my constituency and involved in the D15 With Palestine group. I am sure we are all involved in local groups because these groups have sprung up across the country. It is not all young people - in fact, there are people of every single age and every gender. Many of them would have been disposed to voting for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael over the years. This has had a transformative impact on people and their political understanding for the past two and a half years. This Bill is the most publicised action the Government could take. We need to mark that we are less than an hour away from it being rammed through with very little impact for Palestinians. I will tell the Minister of State what Palestinians think about the Irish Government. Obviously, Palestinians are desperate. They will take any decent measure done by any government and will welcome it. They welcome the fact the Irish Government is not as bad as other governments but it is not as bad as other governments because the other governments are horrendously bad. What is the Government comparing itself to? If you look at the actual practicalities of what Ireland has done to help the Palestinian people, the answer is nothing. It has not done anything about overhead flights or Shannon. It has not done anything about being the second biggest trader with Israel, mainly because of Intel. Obviously, it does not want to upset Intel. It has now not done anything about the occupied territories Bill. Even for a football match, it will not lift a finger to say to the FAI, which gets €6 million in public funding, not to go ahead and not to sportswash a genocidal Israeli team. It does not even have the gumption to do that. That needs to be marked here today. --- 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/dail/2026-07-07/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:07+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-07-07