Mr. Conor O'Neill:

Absolutely. The Senator is getting at a really important point there as well. One of the other things that is maybe unique to the occupied territories Bill we drafted and differs from this legislation is we did not name a particular country or territory. We instead sought to create a general standard in the Bill that was based on the judgment of international courts and the agreement of the Houses of the Oireachtas, which meant it could be applied to illegal settlements in any occupied territory as long as those conditions were met. We mentioned Russian-occupied territory, for example. We did that because we wanted to see a political commitment in principle that what is good for one state is good for another. The fact we have banned trade in goods and services with Russian-occupied territories should not be based on a political consideration of who happens to be holding the weapons. We want to see it applied consistently. The legislation the Government has put before the committee has focused on the occupied Palestinian territories and as I understand it that is because it is in large part a response to the recent ruling of the ICJ and it is fair to say that as regards Russia, we have already done this. The actions we would like to see happen, namely, the prohibition on trade in physical goods and the prohibition on trade in services, are already happening. This is not a new mechanism or a new thing we are trying to create. It is already happening regarding Russian-occupied territory and we just want to see it applied more consistently based on the law, not who happens to be carrying out an occupation in a particular context.