Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The advice we have from consistent Attorneys General, and it remains the advice to the Government, is that the occupied territories Bill cannot be enacted by the Dáil because trade is an EU competence and that is clear in the EU treaties. Even it were enacted, it could not have a practical effect, and that has been the view of three or four Attorneys General from all sorts of backgrounds over previous Governments.

The Government favours the recognition of the state of Palestine. This House and the Seanad have passed motions to that effect. We do not believe the best way to do it is unilaterally. That would be dismissed, it would be ineffectual and we would be seen as an outlier acting unilaterally at a European level. We would like to do it as part of a group of European countries, and that would be a more significant statement. We do not just want it to be a statement. We want it to be part, perhaps, of an agreement to end the violence that is happening at the moment and to put in place a new administration in Gaza for the day afterward. That is the kind of conversation we are having at the moment, for example, with Spain, which has a similar view to ours, and some other countries as well.

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