Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Bill seeks to prohibit the importation and sale of goods, services and natural resources originating from illegal settlements in occupied territories. It is not extreme. It seeks to establish a legal framework to ban these imports from settlements that are already illegal under international humanitarian law and, most importantly, domestic Irish law. Goods and services only available because of gross human rights abuses and violations of international law should not be on sale in Ireland.

A clear example of how the Bill would work is the stopping of goods and services from illegal Israeli colonial settlements from entering Ireland. Israel has occupied the West Bank region of Palestine since 1967 and in that time transferred more than 600,000 of its citizens to that territory. This has been facilitated by the diversion of water supplies and the widespread confiscation of Palestinian land, particularly fertile farmland. It has also created a system of apartheid between illegal Israeli settlers and Palestinian citizens. For decades Israel has attempted to destroy the two-state solution by increasing the building of these illegal colonial settlements in Palestine which violates international law and is a war crime, yet Ireland continues to allow and facilitate trade with the illegal colonial settlements. As long as we continue to allow the Israeli Government to impose apartheid, maintain its illegal occupation and violate international law with impunity, it will never make the transition and necessary compromises to create a just and lasting peace settlement.

The Irish Government must make a strong and unambiguous statement that Israel cannot continue its illegal occupation of Palestine with impunity. Nothing is going to change in Gaza or on the West Bank until the international community moves on from empty rhetoric and actually applies pressure on Israel. Ireland must stop sitting on the sidelines waiting for the right moment. When real, concrete and tangible steps are proposed, it must give leadership. The Government has refused to abide by the Sinn Féin motion to recognise the state of Palestine that was passed unanimously by the House in December 2014 and is refusing to support the Bill. In the face of war crimes and human rights abuses, the time for empty words is over. It is time for action. That is the call coming from the House.

The Bill does not focus on one occupation or country; rather, its focus is solely on the primacy of international law. It could apply to occupations and breaches of international law anywhere in the world. A "relevant occupied territory" is defined as one that has been confirmed as such by the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court or an international tribunal and designated as occupied for the purposes of this legislation by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, subject to the approval of the Houses of the Oireachtas. There is a strong case for Morocco's occupation of Western Sahara to come with the remit of the Bill.

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