The Government will make a decision on whether to include services in the Occupied Territories Bill based on advice from the Attorney General, the Taoiseach has told the Dáil.
Micheál Martin said the Attorney General’s advice would be available to Government “as the Bill is going through”. The new legislation, which will ban trade in goods with Israel that are produced in the occupied territories, will go through the pre-legislative scrutiny process first, he said.
He also told TDs Ireland would be the first county in Europe to introduce such an Act and that the Government wants to ensure “getting a European focus on the occupied territories”.
The issue was raised in the Dáil after Tánaiste Simon Harris brought the legislation to Cabinet on Tuesday. The Israeli Settlements Prohibition of Importation of Goods Bill will make it an offence under the Customs Act to import goods from Israeli settlements in the occupied territories.
Mr Harris has asked the Attorney General for legal advice about the inclusion of services. A spokesman for the Tánaiste said the Department of Foreign Affairs’ legal advice was such a move would not be permissible under EU law – and that the AG has now been asked for his view on it.
Mr Harris told an Oireachtas committee on Tuesday that he is “not against” services being included in legislation.
People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy said the Government had never laid out the “legal distinction between goods and services”.
He asked if the Attorney General’s advice will be “completed and published before the Bill is brought before the committee so that we can actually see the legal basis that the Government is saying that services need to be excluded”.
Earlier, Mr Martin told reporters that banning services, including technology-based products, was “genuinely more complex than goods transferring” due to issues around where they originate. He also pointed out that companies could be caught up in US legislation which some 38 States have enacted which would penalise American firms that are seen to take part in boycott, divest or sanctioning tactics targeting Israel, which the US has traditionally rejected.
Labour leader Ivana Bacik said Government appears to have “closed the door on banning the importation of services, services that are in enriching those profiteering from genocide at a time when we know that 70 per cent of Ireland’s trade with Israel is services”.
The Taoiseach said the Bill only affects the occupied territories. “So I think you’re conflating two different things,” he said.
[ Despite the politics, Ireland is Israel’s second-biggest export market for goodsOpens in new window ]
Mr Martin said the advice on services would be “available to Government in terms of whether we can include it or not”. He said Government will make its position, based on the advice, clear to the committee considering the legalisation.
However, he said “there’s a fair difference in terms of services, both in terms of tracking and tracing and manageability”.
Mr Martin described the legislation as “quite a good Bill in terms of linking it to the customs legislation” and creating offences under the Customs Act.
Social Democrats TD Sinéad Gibney hit out at the EU and said its “descent into moral turpitude has been both swift and shocking. Its silence on Gaza is deafening. No matter what depravity is committed by Israel, the EU refuses to act.
She said a review of the EU Israel Association Agreement found Israel was in breach of its human rights obligations, “but instead of suspending the agreement, the EU did nothing”.
[ EU’s review of Gaza war based on alleged ‘grave violations’ by IsraelOpens in new window ]
Mr Martin said “I’m not happy that we cannot get unanimity across the 2017 EU member of states”.
He told Ms Gibney that countries like Germany, Hungary and others, “have a long-standing historic positions of support for Israel. I regret that, I disagree with it. But the EU is an association of 27 members.”
