Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)

I thank the witnesses. I agree. Ireland has had actual impact and credibility when it has taken action. I sat through two Oireachtas terms during which we were told we were trying to get people on board very slowly and when nothing was done, no legislation was moved forward and the occupied territories Bill and others were delayed.

In fact, the situation deteriorated during that period. Where Ireland has won influence in Europe has been when it has led, through recognition and is leading soon, I hope, in relation to the occupied territories Bill and the EU-Israel association agreement. It is actually Ireland's action that has had an impact, not holding back on action.

One issue that I have been consistent on is that international law and its paramouncy is perfect and I will come to a question on that presently. Within the prospectus itself, the witnesses mentioned paragraph 88 which explicitly references how all of this should be interpreted. This is the kind of due diligence we are talking about. Obviously when the prospectus was designed, they did not simply have a check box that says, if we tick these three boxes, it is okay. They also put in a paragraph that said this should all be interpreted in line with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. When we go to that charter, we see that it talks about universality in relation to human rights and also obligations in terms of the rule of law. It strikes me that due diligence is not simply three keywords. The prospectus itself anticipated that there may be a need to interpret this and have reference to rights. That was in paragraph 88, which I believe is a sufficient basis. I ask our guests to give their view as to whether it is a sufficient basis if the Central Bank had chosen to lean on that paragraph and apply an interpretation in terms of the rule of law.

The other aspect of this is completeness, which our guests mentioned. The three categories, we are told constantly, are required. They are comprehensibility, consistency between the advertisements and the prospectus and completeness but in the bonds, it seems to be the case that there is an issue with completeness. I ask our guests to elaborate on this. The bank would have had powers to, at a minimum, request complete information. One point that our guests have highlighted as missing is a reference to the ICJ interim ruling from January. There is a single line that says that South Africa has taken a case against Israel but it does not mention that the case is under the Genocide Convention. There is no reference to the battle testing issue or the ICJ ruling from July in relation to illegally occupied territories. They seem to me to be very big missing pieces. I ask our guests to elaborate on what they believe the bank could have done under the many powers it has in relation to those issues.

I have a question for Dr. Nuseibah on the ruling from July 2024. He referenced the paragraph about assisting but I want to highlight a different paragraph, namely, No. 278, which talks about how member states have an obligation to take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that assist in the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories. Again, this is an active duty or obligation to "prevent" trade or investment. We have focused a lot on the Genocide Convention but I ask our guests to talk some more about that ruling related to the illegally occupied territories. There are two aspects of it that we were just beginning to unpick at the end of the Central Bank's session last week. There is the question of the funds because as I understand it, the prospectus indicates that the funds go into the general Israeli expenditure. We know that $6.5 billion has been spent by the state of Israel on the construction of settlement buildings, internal roads, utilities and so on. That is leaving aside the funding of the Israel Defense Forces, IDF. How clear is the argument that these funds are being used to assist in the maintenance of an illegal situation created by Israel in the occupied territories?

Separately, although I want to join the two together, we come to the point on risk. The ultimate obligation under the prospectus is to protect investors from risk. Leaving aside the risk to states, which our guests have been very clear on, including the risk that Ireland is taking by not acting, the risk for investors does not seem to have been properly addressed. There is a risk of them contributing to illegal actions but also, because they are paid centrally from the Israeli Exchequer which gathers VAT, tax, revenue and profits from illegally occupied territories, they are potentially being paid from a pool which draws from illegally acquired funds. I ask our guests to comment on the other ruling on the occupied territories because that, it seems, is really crystal clear. I ask them to talk about the risk for the State in relation to that ruling and also the risk to investors, which goes back to my point to Ms Mahony, which was the question of whether they were even doing what they were meant to be doing under the prospectus regulation.