Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I do not necessarily think this is the best response we can give as a State, that states are talking about this and discussing this. We need to legislate here. We need to legislate for Irish trade. I understand there will be European law as well but we are a signatory to the ICJ treaty. We are part of that, are subject to its jurisdiction and participate in it. It is saying that states need to prevent trade. That can only mean one thing in reality, which is trade in goods and services. Rather than looking at the permissibility of what we legislate for I believe we could be in danger of being in contravention of our own legal obligations in international law.

I have a second question. Some of the reticence behind the inclusion of trade in this stems out of the fact that a lot of the trade that does exist in services with the occupied territories forms part of bookings on Airbnb and similar platforms. These are homes that have been stolen from Palestinian people that are being rented out for a killing, pardon the pun. Is part of the reticence because this trade in services actually passes through Irish offices of Airbnb here? Is that part of the consideration that may be at play here?