Mr. Seán Marmion:

Senator O'Reilly talked about the response of the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe. That has been dealt with in connection with the question of whether the Central Bank has been independent. It has been well dealt with today. The Senator also referred to the Attorney General's advice. In the debate on the Sinn Féin Bill on the Israeli war bonds, the Minister quoted Article 215. I understand that the Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisers, OPLA, has written that that actually has no bearing whatsoever on the Bill. In this regard, I want to quote a small passage from our submission that takes this up. I should say I am a former employee of the Central Bank and am now retired. I do not hold any personal animosity against it and really enjoyed working there but was shocked, like many colleagues, when I heard it was facilitating Israeli war bonds. The Central Bank wrote to the finance committee in December last year after the Governor had appeared before it last October. He stated he would adhere to any financial restrictions or sanctions imposed under law. This was an open invitation to the Government to introduce a restriction to stop the sale of Israeli war bonds in the EU. The Government not only failed to act but also opposed the recent Sinn Féin Restricted Financial Measures (State of Israel) Bill, which would have done exactly that. The Bill sought to empower the Minister for Finance to make regulations imposing restrictive measures in respect of securities issued on behalf of the State of Israel. It was underpinned by the ICJ advisory opinion of July and also informed by the advice of OPLA, which stated we "can provide for restricted access to its financial services on the basis of public policy grounds that are rooted in the Ireland's fundamental interest in pursuing its international law obligations". The Government has not tried in any meaningful way to set out a legal argument against this Bill. It has said it has legal advice from the Attorney General but has not made this available. It invokes the Attorney General as a barrier to action instead of simply setting out its legal arguments. We have seen this played out as a barrier to action in the occupied territories Bill.