Mr. Gerry Liston:

A Chathaoirligh and members of the committee, I am very grateful for the invitation to speak about this Bill on behalf of both the Global Legal Action Network, GLAN, and Sadaka, the Ireland-Palestine alliance.

I hope to make clear why the debate around services is far from academic. On the contrary, this is an issue with very real and practical consequences. To explain why this is I am going to focus on the most prominent example of an Irish company involved in the provision of services linked to the illegal Israeli settlements, which is, Airbnb’s Irish subsidiary. Before I go any further, a word of caution is necessary.