Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 16 July 2025

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade

General Scheme of Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Bill 2025: Discussion (Resumed)

2:00 am

Mr. Fergal O'Brien:

I do not. Based on the feedback I have got, I suspect a much larger number of companies would be impacted by the addition of services than if goods alone were to be included. As we know, the trade in goods is very limited. The complexity raised by the services issue is substantially greater. Companies will not know the answer. If we asked companies today whether they were trading services with the occupied territories, they would not be able to tell us because it would not be readily identified on their systems by a geographical code. They would have to profile each customer and try to determine that information through very detailed analysis. Answering that question would be extremely difficult. How services are delivered and traded and how value is created is incredibly complex. From a business operations perspective, it is a whole different situation from that of goods trade.

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