Mary Lou McDonald: Government 'Guts' Occupied Territories Bill

Go raibh maith agat agus, críomhaidh fóilte raibh Daniel agus Sean sa teacht. Taoiseach, the Minister for Foreign Affairs has brought draft legislation to Cabinet to ban goods from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. On your way into Cabinet this morning, you made it clear that services are excluded. So you've taken a wrecking ball to the original Occupied Territories Bill. You know that 70% of trade between Ireland and the Occupied Territories is in services. You know that the Bill was designed to end the shameful economic support provided to Israel's illegal settlements. And yet you hollow out the legislation, rendering it ineffective. Your argument that including services is impossible to implement simply doesn't stack up. The Occupied Territories Bill is in line with the ruling of the International Court of Justice, a ruling that makes no distinction between goods and services. In fact, banning services is required under international law. Spain has included services in its legislation so it can be done. The Occupied Territories Bill has a long history. Passed in the Seanedd in 2018, passed in the Dáil in 2019, and it continues to enjoy overwhelming public support. You've paid it plenty of lip service. For eight years you've said you'd support the Occupied Territories Bill, but you have stalled, delayed, blocked, and now you have gutted the Bill. This is your response, your approach, after 14 Irish citizens on a humanitarian flotilla to Gaza were kidnapped, detained, and brutalised by Israeli forces. This is your response and approach to the slaughter and genocide in Gaza, as Palestinian men, women, and children are wiped out every single day. Your response to mass displacement, enforced starvation, and the obliteration of civilian infrastructure, all at the hands of a ruthless apartheid regime, a regime gifted impunity by world leaders, including you. So caithfidh go bhfuil seireabhíos sa n-Oraibh sa n-Rachtaibh anus go mbeidh sé effaictach. Caithfidh an dáil an bon leagan don bhfuile in a umlaan a raibh. Ireland should be leading. Ireland must be leading on this question. You must make clear that the theft of Palestinian land will not be rewarded with economic support, that Ireland will stand up for human rights and international law, that Ireland stands with Palestine. Excluding services and pushing forward with hollowed-out legislation is a cop-out and a dangerous one. It can't happen taoiseach. The people of Palestine, of Gaza, slaughtered, besieged, brutalised and starved look to Ireland for support and we simply cannot turn our backs. Services along with goods must be banned. The sanction must be effective. And taoiseach, either you accept international law or you don't. Ireland must be on the right side of history. Last week I wrote to you and I urged you to work constructively with the opposition to pass the original Occupied Territories Bill in full and taoiseach, that is what must happen. I don't accept your proposition in terms of how you have distorted the government's position, the Irish government's position in relation to the cause of Palestinian self-determination. And from the outset we have taken a series of measures that have been at the leading edge in terms of any European Union member state's response to the genocide in Gaza, to the continued violent behaviour of the settlers in the West Bank and indeed in terms of the continuing war in Lebanon which is completely unjustified. And we have recognised the state of Palestine along with Spain for example and subsequently then Slovenia afterwards. In a broader move to try and get a peace accord going within the Middle East in terms of a Palestinian state, we intervened in the South African case before the International Court of Justice in terms of the case there in respect of genocide. We have provided very significant support to Palestinians, up to 146 million up to this year. And we also, in terms of UNRWA in particular, took a leading role in Europe to stem the momentum at the time in terms of taking aid away from UNRWA after Israeli allegations against UNRWA personnel. We held back that momentum and then we doubled down in terms of doubling our own provision of finance to UNRWA itself. And consistently in all international fora, the Attorney General has argued before the ICJ in respect of the impacts of the illegal occupation of Palestine. And at the United Nations General Assembly we have co-sponsored resolutions in terms of seeking to implement the Court's advisory opinion. So there is no justification for the assertions you have made. And I know your objective is to sort of attack the government, sometimes even more than the Israeli government. That is the objective. And in terms of the occupied territories, I think we need a bit of honesty across the house, absolute honesty here. Let's not overstate the impact of this either way, either way, because my experience has been that as soon as we do, like we did recognition or whatever, you move on very quickly and dismiss it. That has been the standard practice. We have, first of all in terms of the bill, the original bill could not go through the House because it wouldn't have been legally, in terms of how it was framed. But in terms of services, and first of all on goods, the goods, by whatever yardstick you use, about €200,000 worth of goods come in from the settlements, €200,000, fruit and vegetables. That's what comes in. Do I believe that? Or indeed services are intangible, as someone described it. It's impossible to implement. Could we have some honesty about that? And there is a factor. We have to, like, there is an issue in terms of what will happen in terms of if services were included, in terms of our own jobs in this country and potential attacks on multinationals who are based here. That is the reality. No, I don't mind, people can dismiss that all, but I don't want to dismiss it. I have to protect about 250,000 jobs in this country too, and there's a real issue there that people are either just turning a blind eye to, in terms of that this is a kind of something we can do casually and no one's going to pay a blind bit of notice. There's been a lot of attacks on Ireland because of the leadership stance we've taken as a government. Because we've been out there with Spain more than anybody else in terms of these issues. The Irish people have taken a principled and a morally ethical stance always on the question of Palestine. Of that there is no doubt. But unfortunately the Irish government have not followed suit. The truth is, and the honest position is, that you have had to be dragged to taking any kind of positive stance to face down the impunity of Israel. To accept that until there are consequences for Israel and for the Netanyahu regime, they will continue to slaughter Palestinians. They will continue to occupy land. They will continue with their apartheid regime. The only answer is sanctions. And that's why the Occupied Territories Bill matters. It has to include both goods and services. I put it to you that Spain included services. So why on earth can Ireland not? Sanctions are the only thing that will work with Israel. Deputy MacDonald, your time is up now. The Taoiseach will respond. Time is up, Deputy. Taoiseach, please. Taoiseach to respond. Spain have not included services, Deputy. They've included the advertisement of services. Different thing completely. We need accuracy here. Very few countries have gone down this route. Spain and Ireland are going down this route in terms of the banning of goods. We hope Belgium and the Netherlands will follow suit. Slovenia, it looks like, will not be in a position, because the government has changed in Slovenia. And the government that's now elected has a completely different issue. It's at European level, if we're to have any impact on Israel. And even at European level, I'm trying to be honest with people here. How does that one have impact on the Israeli government, on Netanyahu and these people? The bottom line is, the bottom line, that's all rubbish, all Shannon and all that nonsense. It has no impact on Netanyahu. It's just sloganeering. All that's happening, Trudy Chair, if I may say so, is sloganeering. Shallow rhetoric, devoid of any substance here. The only way, in my view, there are two major powers that could influence Israel. Fundamentally, the US can. And secondly, maybe, a unanimous European Union position on the US-Israeli-Israeli-Israeli trade association.