Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I being by acknowledging the presence of the Palestinian ambassador and that it is the 75th anniversary of the Nakba. I offer my condolences and sympathies to all those who have lost family members and friends over those years.

I thank my colleagues in Sinn Féin for putting forward this important Bill to which we in Labour our delighted to offer full support. I also acknowledge the ongoing work of our colleague in the other House, Senator Black, who has done so much to forward bring forward the occupied territories Bill. I was glad to support it when I was in the Seanad and it still has strong Labour support there. It has passed through the Seanad and received cross-party support. I hope, notwithstanding the Government speeches, we will see cross-party support for this Bill too. Other speakers have pointed out there has for many years been a strong sense across different parties in government and opposition of support for the cause of the Palestinian people and strong condemnation rightly offered for the breaches of international law and abuses of human rights by the State of Israel. There is a strong tradition of that in all parties in Ireland.

We in Labour are happy to support this Bill. It is in keeping with our long track record on Palestinian rights. Our former leader, Eamon Gilmore, when Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade very strongly advocated for the rights of the Palestinian people. When he addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September 2011, he made a speech that was groundbreaking at that time. He stated Ireland would support the Palestinian bid to become a full member of the UN and he repeated this position on numerous occasions as Minister. I have been a long-time supporter of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Sadaka campaign and the rights of the Palestinian people. I had the pleasure, along with many Labour colleagues and colleagues of all parties, of attending the Amnesty picnic in front of Leinster House last week where this important issue was raised. It was acknowledged Israel has been carrying out what is effectively and apartheid system against the Palestinian people. Even in the days since then we have seen dreadful violence, including killing of Palestinian children and ongoing oppression and abuse of Palestinians.

It is, therefore, essential that we continue putting on pressure internationally and in Ireland to end the illegal occupation of Palestinian land and to address the gross human rights abuses being inflicted on the Palestinian people, who have lost so much over the past 75 years, which we recognise this week with the anniversary of the Nakba. I think we all recognise the State is committed to working for a resolution of the crisis in the Middle East and to ensuring there will be a two-state solution. However, we must look at actions we can take, rather than just at words and offering support at the international level. The Bill represents an action that can be taken in Ireland. It is an opportunity to ensure taxpayers' money is not directly or indirectly funding Israeli breaches of international law.

To date, the National Treasury Management Agency has invested through the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund in nine Israeli companies, including four banks, that operate in illegal Israeli settlements. These banks provide direct financing to Israeli construction, infrastructure and maintenance projects being undertaken on land expropriated from Palestinian people. The ISIF is funded by taxpayers' money, which means Irish taxpayers are de facto investors in the financing and sustenance of apartheid. There is a dreadful irony here. When I was on the foreign affairs committee between 2016 and 2020, it was well-recognised than not just Irish but EU taxpayers were financing development programmes in Gaza and the West Bank, only to see the results, including schools, homes and Palestinian infrastructure built with EU moneys and public moneys from here, being demolished by the Israeli state. This is part of a regime of demolitions and forcible movement of Palestinian people. We have seen this over a long period and this Bill is one small way in which we can achieve some sort of recognition of that appalling practice. It has been condemned at EU level too that EU money has been used, rightly, to pay for the building-up of Palestinian infrastructure that is then being demolished by the State of Israel, apparently with impunity at international level. In recognition of this, and so much more, the Dáil voted unanimously to recognise the de facto annexation of Palestinian land by Israel. International law recognises this as illegal. Given our own history of colonialism, we are in a unique position to understand the Palestinian struggle. It is ethically questionable to continue investment in the economy of settlement lands where this investment helps to expand the occupation.

There is also a significant workers' rights crisis and as the party of work and of the trade union movement, I wish to highlight it. There is also a significant workers' rights issue at play here, especially with Israeli companies financed indirectly by some of our money. Palestinian workers do not enjoy the same rights and protections as Israelis in the illegal settlements. To work on the settlements, Palestinians must obtain a permit from Israeli authorities. They need permission to work on land that was in many cases illegally expropriated from them. These work permits can be annulled at any time, including when Palestinian workers seek to organise collectively to demand their rights and seek to unionise or engage in political activity. Permits are tied to their employers and this means workers in the occupied territories are especially vulnerable to what would be regarded in any country as labour rights violations. Palestinians face salary discrimination, poor working conditions, the withholding or denial of wages, the arbitrary cancellation of work permits by the Israeli authorities and they are unable to switch employers. Israeli labour regulations technically apply to employers in the settlements, but they are rarely enforced and Palestinian workers are, as we all know, reluctant to demand their rights for fear of losing their permits. That very important aspect underlies the motivation for this Bill.

As a final point, there is considerable international precedence for divestment from Israeli enterprises on ethical grounds. Norway’s largest pension fund divested from 16 Israeli companies that operated on illegal settlements, while a major Dutch pension fund did similarly. We have rightly agreed to divest the ISIF from fossil fuel undertakings. That decision was a result of climate policy, but it is clearly an ethical matter. I am reflecting on the context of President Higgins's important speech about the economy in which he spoke so powerfully about the need to ensure economy, ecology and ethics are aligned and linked, namely, that we cannot detach our economy from our ethics and we clearly cannot detach ethics from our foreign policy. We are proud Irish foreign policy is bound up in ethical considerations and, therefore, as part of that policy, we should seek to ensure, in any way we can, that public money is not being used to contribute to violations of international law and to the oppression of a people, namely the Palestinians.

In supporting this Bill, we are taking more than a symbolic act in support of the Palestinian people. If this Bill were to be passed by the House and not delayed as the Government is proposing, it would send a clear message to the Israeli Government and Israeli businesses that we condemn the actions of the Israeli regime that inflict abuses on the Palestinian and which are in breach of international law. Supporting this Bill shows we stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine in their struggle for self-determination and their struggle simply to see the norms of international law respected and their rights being respected at that level too. I urge the Minister of State and all Government colleagues, many of whom have stood in support of Palestinian rights on multiple occasions, to support the Bill and not delay it. They should join with us on the Opposition benches, from which the Bill is going to receive strong support, to ensure we speak collectively as an Oireachtas not just in support of the Palestinian people but in support of international law.

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