The Occupied Territories Bill – intended to block trade with Palestinian land occupied by Israeli settlers – will be formally referred to the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs next week as a signal from the Government of its unequivocal backing for the legislation.
In a meeting on Tuesday evening with Senator Frances Black, who tabled the Private Members’ Bill in 2018, Tánaiste Micheál Martin told her the Government was also prepared to issue a money message for the legislation. This is a necessary step for any piece of non-Government legislation to complete its passage through the Oireachtas process.
While senior political figures said there was no chance the Bill would be enacted into law before the general election, Ms Black said her meeting with the Tánaiste, who is also Minister for Foreign Affairs, was a “really positive move before the election”. She said both Mr Martin and Taoiseach Simon Harris were of the view that Ireland was now obliged to pass the legislation.
“They will bring it as far as humanly possible before the curtain comes down,” she said.
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“I have to say it is frustrating that it has come so late but I’m very pleased that the Government has moved forward.”
Ms Black said Mr Martin told her the Coalition had committed at Cabinet level not to start from scratch with its own legislation but to progress her Bill, which is now six years old.
“There will be amendments to the Bill but all of them are technical with a view to strengthening it and protecting it from challenge,” Ms Black said.
“For the first time ever, every single political party as of this morning has officially said they support passing the Bill and banning trade with the settlements.”
She said her expectation was that, with such backing across the board, the Bill could become law soon after the next Government takes office.
Successive governments have blocked the Bill since 2018, citing constitutional and EU law difficulties with it.
However, since a ruling by the International Court of Justice on the occupied territories last summer, the Government has decided that the political and legal context has changed sufficiently to allow the Bill to be reconsidered.
In a statement released after Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, the Government said that “the advisory opinion found that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory is unlawful and should be brought to an end as rapidly as possible.
“It further addressed the duty on all states not to render any aid or assistance in maintaining that situation. In particular, the court stated that all states have a duty to distinguish in dealings with Israel between its own territory and the OPT [occupied Palestinian territories].”
The Attorney General’s advice on the best approach to avoid a breach of EU law or the Constitution will be considered as part of the review. A memo will be brought back to Government advising on the next steps but that will not happen until a new government is in place.
In a statement on the Bill, Mr Martin said “there is a range of complex policy and legal issues to be resolved”, a signal that there will be no early conclusion to the legislation.
His statement came as opposition parties again renewed calls for the legislation to be debated, amended and passed in advance of the election being called.
In the Dáil, Mr Harris said he did not want to have any kind of “ruaille buaille” (furore) over the timescale for the passage of the legislation because it is “complex”.
Labour leader Ivana Bacik, Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns and Independent TD Thomas Pringle called for the Bill to be debated, amended and passed before the election is called and said they would facilitate the debate.
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