Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

A deal has been done with Israel and Egypt on co-operation which may lead to more natural gas coming into the European Union.

To be very clear, as the Deputy outlined, the practice has always been that these agreements do not apply to the occupied territories. The European Commission has included a unilateral statement in an annexe to this agreement that clearly and publicly underlines the inapplicability of the memorandum of understanding to territories occupied by Israel since 1967, but, no, we are not proposing to put sanctions on Israel in the way the Deputy has described. He has singled out Israel as usual and he has not called for sanctions against Russia.

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