The Government will examine how the Occupied Territories Bill, which would ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements, could be amended and passed into law, Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin has said.
Blocked by successive governments, Mr Martin said the judgment of the International Court of Justice on the occupied Palestinian territories last summer had changed the context for the Bill. He added that the Government would consider fresh advice from the Attorney General next week about a possible ban on trade with Israeli businesses operating in the occupied territories.
He said the court’s advisory opinion “makes it clear that the occupation is illegal and that member states have obligations on themselves not to do anything that would support the occupation”.
Mr Martin was speaking in an interview with The Irish Times Inside Politics podcast.
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Later in Brussels, Taoiseach Simon Harris said Ireland would move ahead without the rest of the European Union in seeking to ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
It was “crystal clear” that there was no agreement at EU level to review the bloc’s trade agreement with Israel, he said. Ireland would “not wait for everybody in Europe to move on the issue of trade in the occupied Palestinian territories”, he said.
The Green leader Roderic O’Gorman also suggested on Wednesday that the Government should push ahead with the Bill.
In the Inside Politics interview, Mr Martin said he had lengthy discussions with defence ministers from other Unifil countries on Wednesday, and said the situation was “very difficult and very challenging” for Irish troops in Lebanon at present. “We have a lot of concern and all the troop-contributing members have,” he said.
On the next general election, Mr Martin acknowledged that, “We are clearly ... into next general election cycle” and said he wanted to see certain legislation such as the Gambling Bill enacted before a general election, while other Bills, such as the Finance Bill, were essential. The Finance Bill will enact measures introduced in Budget 2025. The Gambling Regulation Bill, to overhaul the regulation of that industry in Ireland, was due to be passed in the Dáil on Wednesday evening.
“To a large extent, there’s essentially two dates for this election, potentially. One is end of November, beginning of December, or February ... I think what people want is to complete work to make sure that there’s a solid bit of work done and that we end up, that we end the Government in a harmonious way, having worked together for 4½ years now.”
Asked if it would make a difference if the election was in February or November, he said: “It would make a difference if you don’t get the Finance Act through ... that has to get through before we can have an election. So that does make a difference. The actual difference in time between say December and February is marginal.”
Mr Martin said “a lot of work has been done” on the Fianna Fáil manifesto, citing the cost-of-living and housing as areas that the party would focus especially on.
He said the political landscape for Sinn Féin had changed before the current controversies had come to light, but that they had gone “to the heart of how Sinn Féin as a party works, its culture, its tendency to protecting its own first and putting the party first”.
He emphasised the differences in policy between Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil on economic issues.
“There’s a real divide in the Dáil on the fundamentals of what makes the Irish economy work. I believe in free trade and yet we seem to have a real difficulty in Dáil Éireann today to get a majority to support and ratify legally a trade deal that’s entered into between Canada and the European Union [the Ceta trade agreement], a trade deal which has increased exports by about 30 per cent for Irish SMEs, which means more jobs.
“Trade is the lifeblood of our economy. And our society. Yet we have politicians in Leinster House, including Sinn Féin, who oppose deals and trade agreements arrived at by the EU and countries like Canada. And that needs to be called out in this campaign because that goes to the heart of the Irish enterprise economic model, which over 50-odd years has actually worked. Now we need not just protect it, we need to advance it.”
Mr Martin also grounded his continuing opposition to any prospect of coalition with Sinn Féin on “moral” and “cultural” grounds.
He cited Sinn Féin’s efforts to “triumphalise” the role of violence in the Troubles and said: “It is really time for modern Ireland to say, the gun doesn’t work in politics and there’s no justification for it, and there was no justification for it.”
Asked if this culture within the party was as much a barrier to any coalition with Sinn Féin as policy differences, Mr Martin replied: “It does for me, yes, yeah. And the policies are fundamental, though.”
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