{"id":467846,"date":"2026-05-26T13:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T13:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/467846\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T13:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T13:44:09","slug":"ban-on-services-from-occupied-palestinian-territories-could-harm-ireland-most-says-martin-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/467846\/","title":{"rendered":"Ban on services from occupied Palestinian territories could harm Ireland most, says Martin \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Banning the trade of services based in Palestinian territories<\/a> illegally occupied by Israel<\/a> would potentially \u201cdamage Ireland more than anybody else\u201d, Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> has said. <\/p>\n

The Fianna F\u00e1il<\/a> leader was speaking ahead of a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning, where the long-awaited Bill<\/a>, formally entitled Israeli Settlements (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Bill 2026, was finally due to be agreed by Government. <\/p>\n

It will give effect to the commitment set out in the Programme for Government to progress legislation to prohibit the importation of goods from Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.<\/p>\n

Minister of Foreign Affairs Helen McMcEntee said she hopes the Bill will be in place by the D\u00e1il\u2019s summer break.<\/p>\n

Once the Bill is enacted and commenced, the importation of goods originating in the settlements into Ireland will be an offence under section 14 of the Customs Act 2015.<\/p>\n

But the legislation will only include a ban on the trade of goods and not services. <\/p>\n

Speaking on Tuesday on his way into the Cabinet meeting, Martin told journalists that \u201cfundamentally, it\u2019s not implementable in terms of services\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cSecondly, our strong legal advice is in the negative also. And thirdly, I mean it would perhaps potentially damage Ireland more than anybody else. In terms of potential impacts on US multinationals based here and back in America, but more fundamentally, it\u2019s just simply not implementable. And I think we need to be realistic and need to be honest with people in respect of what we can achieve via this legislation,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Occupied Territories Bill: what\u2019s in it, how it has changed and what the implications might beOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Martin said the Bill was \u201ca further initiative in a long line of decisions that the Irish Government has taken\u201d, and that Ireland has been \u201cvery consistent in opposing Israeli policy in the occupied territories\u201d. <\/p>\n

T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris said he was pleased to see the Bill being brought forward and that Ireland would now be one of the \u201cvery first countries in the European Union to pass primary legislation in relation to banning trade with the occupied Palestinian territories\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing very honest, though, the most effective action that we can see is at a European level,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

He added: \u201cI think the impact [of the Bill] is important in terms of values. I hope it inspires and encourages other countries to do more too, but if we really want to exert maximum pressure here to end the horrors that have taken place in Gaza, and to respect international law, Europe must do more. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf Europe was to take, at an EU level, the actions that we\u2019re taking at a domestic level, the impact would be very, very significant, and I think that\u2019s where our focus should be.\u201d <\/p>\n

McEntee said the Government wanted to bring forward \u201clegislation that can be implementable, that we can bring into effect as soon as possible. And that\u2019s exactly what I\u2019ll be proposing here today\u201d. <\/p>\n

McEntee also confirmed she will be bringing forward legislation in the coming weeks that is designed to unravel the \u2018triple lock\u2019, the mechanism under which the Government, the D\u00e1il and the UN Security Council all need to approve the deployment of more than 12 Irish troops on missions abroad.<\/p>\n

Independent senator Frances Black<\/a>, who first introduced a version of the Occupied Territories Bill in 2018, said what the Government had agreed this week \u201cwas essentially a partial ban on trade with the illegal Israeli settlements.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt omits the majority of Irish trade, in intangible services like tech and IT, and greatly undermines the scope of the legislation. Government still haven\u2019t given any coherent, detailed justification for this beyond short soundbites,\u201d Black said.<\/p>\n

She said when the Bill \u201cfinally hits the floor of the D\u00e1il in the coming weeks I will be working with all Opposition parties to table amendments to include services. That has been my clear position since 2018 and I will do everything in my power to make it happen\u201d. <\/p>\n

Labour, the Social Democrats, the Green Party and People Before Profit have all raised concerns about the omission of services from the Bill. <\/p>\n

Green Party leader Roderic O\u2019Gorman<\/a> said he thinks including services in the bill would be worth the economic cost that Ireland could face from the US in response. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Gorman said the Government\u2019s issue with including services was \u201cnot a legal issue, this is a political call.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the political call is we can annoy the Trump administration a little bit by including goods, but not that next little bit by including services. I don\u2019t accept that argument. The Trump administration will not like this Bill, whether it includes services or not. If we pass a Bill just on goods, the Trump administration will cause trouble over that. But there does come a time where we have to decide whether the values that we articulate as a country, we stand behind them,\u201d O\u2019Gorman said. <\/p>\n

He said the view of the International Court of Justice was that trade with the occupied territories was illegal. \u201cAnd I believe Ireland should follow through on that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Banning the trade of services based in Palestinian territories illegally occupied by Israel would potentially \u201cdamage Ireland more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3409,42,3410,43,4503,4268,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-467846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-gaza-strip","tag-headlines","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-occupied-territories-bill","tag-palestine","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}