Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)

I will be sharing time with my colleague Deputy Lawlor. We are in an incredible situation in this country and in the Middle East at present. For the first time, two weeks ago, in response to a Labour Party motion and a Sinn Féin Bill two weeks ago on Israeli bonds, a significant statement was made by senior Government representatives in this House. Finally, a senior Government figure in the State said unequivocally that Israel is carrying out a genocide against the people of Gaza.

The genocide convention, dare I explain again, makes it crystal clear that where genocide is suspected or claimed, there is a moral and legal obligation for a state to make good on its utterances, to bring that to its logical and practical conclusion and to take that claim further. It is uncomfortable for the Government, the leadership of the Central Bank, the citizens of Ireland and all of us in this House to comprehend that our financial services regulator, the Central Bank, is, whatever way we interpret it, a critical cog in the wheel funding the Israeli state, which is carrying out a deliberate starvation policy of children and mass murder of citizens in the open prison that is Gaza.

The far-right Israeli regime makes no bones about it. Dani Naveh, the CEO of Israel Bonds, the organisation that sells these bonds, has admitted publicly that the resources generated from the sale of these bonds are funding what he called the military operations in Gaza. The fact that Ireland was saddled with operating the Israeli bonds prospectus is another perverse outworking of Brexit. It is not a responsibility the Central Bank asked for, I assume, but it is one it and, by extension, we, as Irish citizens and Members of the House, have. Ireland is now the home country for Israeli bonds in terms of the prospectus. The explanations as to why we cannot introduce legislation to change that reality seem, to the many of us who are desperate to see accountability and an end to the ethnic cleansing, like a mere detail in the face of a bonfire of international laws and norms.

It is ironic in the extreme, although this is no time for irony, that Israel sees Ireland as a country that is not fit to host its ambassador, yet it conveniently uses our Central Bank, our financial regulator, to approve its bond packages for investors who want to invest in the State of Israel. That is, frankly, perverse. The Central Bank is independent in the carrying-out of its functions. However, when a senior member of the Government recognises that the state whose prospectus is approved here is engaged in genocide, we have a greater responsibility. I and others would argue that all State agencies have a role beyond a narrow technical and Jesuitical interpretation of laws and an obligation to tick a box.

The preamble to the EU prospectus governing this space states:

This Regulation respects the fundamental rights and observes the principles recognised in particular by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Therefore, this Regulation should be interpreted and applied in accordance with those rights and principles.

The charter states the Union is founded on the indivisible and universal values of human dignity, freedom, equality and solidarity and is based on the principles of democracy and the rule of law. This all speaks for itself.

That we have not yet imposed any form of sanction on Israel is unconscionable. I accept, and we all understand, that Ireland is doing all it can to build coalitions in that regard. Yet, as the House knows, we have the power to restrict access to financial services. These arguments have been well rehearsed in recent weeks. In other words, there are opportunities to develop and enact legislation to restrict and stop the Central Bank's role in this.

The Governor of the Central Bank will appear before the finance committee today. He will say that the term for the current prospectus will come to an end in September of this year. Regardless of what happens today, the Central Bank has a decision to take in the next three to four months. We can decide to enact emergency legislation to stop this now and challenge the State of Israel to see us in the international courts, courts which, by the way, Israel now routinely decides not to recognise at all. Let us challenge Israel to do that.

As we move beyond this motion, in the next three to four months, will the Government indicate its view to the Central Bank and remind it of its legal and moral obligations? What thresholds will the Government expect it to use? What criteria will it apply to a decision it may have to make to renew the Israeli prospectus as it comes to an end?

As a State, we have, at least by the unconscionably low international standards that obtain at the moment, shown leadership in response to the devastation in Gaza and the genocide being carried out against the Palestinian people. We have been pioneers. Let us continue to be. Let us accept this motion and, as colleagues in the Social Democrats said earlier, provide all TDs in this House with the opportunity to vote with their conscience. Let us do the right thing this evening.

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