Mr. ?amonn Meehan:

The UN database has been under attack literally from day one. The United States does not like the UN database and opposes it. The US has done a lot over the past eight years to bring it into disrepute and to destroy it. The European Union does not want the UN database. Ireland could make a stand and publicly support the existence of the UN database and the need to update this database annually, and provide financial resources to do that. When the database was voted on by the UN Human Rights Council, in 2016, I believe, it was the countries of the global south that secured the passage of the UN database. The European Union and the US voted against it and they have done everything they possibly could over the past eight years to undermine, damage, slow it down and make its work practically impossible. This is no longer acceptable, especially in the context of an illegal settlement regime.

Senator Black mentioned the Attorney General and his presentation to the International Court of Justice last month in the context of looking at the question of the illegality of Israel's occupation. We are likely to get a judgement from the ICJ on this question in the coming months. Not only is it likely that we will have a situation where the settlements per se breach international law, but we will in all likelihood have a situation where the court finds that the occupation itself, which has gone on since 1967, is illegal. What will we do then? We are already obliged not to render aid or assistance to Israel's occupation or to its settlement regime. By the end of this year, it is likely that it will be declared an illegal occupation. Will we then continue to render aid and assistance to that occupation and to those settlements? While it is a small amount of money, at the end of the day it does render aid and assistance to a settlement enterprise. According to UNCTAD, $628 billion has been made by the State of Israel in 20 years from the settlements. That is literally from the theft of land and resources, including water, building materials, the use of agricultural land and businesses that operate in the settlements. It is quite simply a scandal.