Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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101. To ask the Minister for Finance further to Parliamentary Question No. 60 of 29 May 2025, if the 2024 figure, due mid-year, in respect of the value of all State investment in Israel bonds, is now available; if Ireland, through the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, ISIF, has now entirely divested itself of direct holdings of Israel bonds; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39400/25]

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I am following up on an issue I have raised more than once in respect of the State investment through ISIF in Israel war bonds. I ask the Minister to be very specific. I got the figure for 2023 in a written reply. We had to wait for the 2024 figure. What was that figure? What is the figure for 2025? Will the Minister explain why we are investing in war bonds when genocide is taking place?

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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The Ireland Strategic Investment Fund is a €16.6 billion fund comprising the discretionary portfolio of €8.9 billion and the directed portfolio of €7.7 billion based on the 2024 annual report. It has a double bottom line mandate to invest on a commercial basis in a manner designed to support economic activity and employment in Ireland.

ISIF has complete independence in implementing its investment strategy. At year-end 2024, ISIF held €3.6 million in Israeli sovereign debt. ISIF monitors all of its holdings within its investment portfolio to ensure alignment with its risk profile and investment parameters.

As regards the divestment, I would say, as I have previously, that geopolitical tensions have been rising across the Middle East, posing an increased risk to assets with economic exposure to the region. ISIF's view is that following the escalation of the Israel-Iran conflict in June 2025, the current situation carries materially greater risk. I am advised that given this, ISIF determined that a risk profile of a number of sovereign bond holdings in the region was no longer within its investment parameters. Following this determination, ISIF sold its holdings of sovereign debt issued by Jordan, Egypt and Israel.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I am glad ISIF has divested of its investment. I received a written reply to a query, which stated that in 2023, the investment was worth €2.62 million. That was the year Hamas crossed the border and Israel started on this genocide.

In 2024, as the genocide continued and worsened, this State invested more money in the bonds. It was not an awful lot more, but there was an increase to €3.62 million. The Minister seemed to be unaware of that when a Sinn Féin motion was debated in the House on how the prospectus works. I specifically mentioned the reply I received that included the figure of €2.62 million. I might have taken up the Minister wrong but I understood from him shaking his head that he did not know or was saying the opposite and that we did not invest. At the time we were discussing the Central Bank, he led me to believe, or did not know, that we were directly investing in war bonds. Not alone did we do that but we increased it in 2024. I would like him to be very specific about his involvement in that decision.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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As I said, I do not play a role in determining the investment decisions that ISIF makes. They are made independent of me and this decision was made by ISIF in the way I have just explained to the Deputy.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I will use the time the Minister has not used. I accept he has nothing to do with those decisions and that ISIF is an independent body. However, he has an opinion and is a part of a Government that says genocide is taking place. He stood over a situation whereby through either a lack of knowledge or otherwise, he could not tell me how much money was being invested. Suddenly we have the information. When I received the written reply, I was not told the relevant figure for 2024. I am now being told, and welcome the fact, that there has been a divestment. I am asking the Minister straight how he, as a Minister in a Government, can stand over the Government investing in war bonds.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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May I come in?

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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The Secretary General of the UN has told us:

What we are witnessing in Gaza is a level of death and destruction that has no parallel in recent times. And it is something that undermines, I would say, undermines the most basic conditions of human dignity for the population of Gaza, independently of the enormous suffering that they are having.

We are investing in that genocide.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister's response is bull. That is the reality. His Pontious Pilate approach of washing his hands does not wash. He previously wrote to ISIF but on the issue of investing in a genocide, he sat on his hands. I will quote a Government press release, which stated:

Minister Donohoe has recommended that the ISIF should move from a broad investment strategy that is focused on all sectors, to a focus on the priorities that will support Project Ireland 2040 and have a more direct and positive impact on the economy’s long-term growth potential. These priorities include key sustainable economic challenges, such as investments that support indigenous industry; regional development [and so on]. On this basis, the Government has decided to refocus ISIF funds along the following lines ...

The press release goes on to state that ISIF has taken up the Minister's recommendation and has done so. The Minister has impact. The idea that ISIF is completely independent and that, as Minister, he can do nothing is nonsense. This is a genocide. People have been ripped apart by bullets and bombs, and this State funded it. We brought forward a motion in this House and the Minister sat there as if the State had no role, hand, act or part in it. What has happened is disgraceful. He does not get away with saying it is nothing to do with him.

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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What the Minister has said in respect of ISIF is simply not credible. He is the Minister for Finance. This is public money and taxpayers' money. In 2024, when a genocide was taking place, it was used to buy more war bonds to fund that genocide. He is the Minister for Finance. He is responsible for how taxpayers' and public money is used. Under his responsibility, our money was used to buy war bonds to fund that genocide. He has direct responsibility for that. He needs to answer about his responsibility in that regard.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I have responsibility for setting the general direction that is given to ISIF. However, I do not play a role in determining the individual bonds and shares that ISIF holds. All the Deputies know that. I do not play a role. I do not direct or communicate to ISIF and tell it what individual investment decisions to make. What I do is communicate with ISIF and set a general direction for it.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister reviews ISIF's investment strategy.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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Please, the Minister has the floor. Please, Deputy.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister reviews ISIF's investment strategy.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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Deputy Doherty, please. The Minister has the floor.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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It is a simple thing. Do not fund the genocide

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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Please, Deputy Doherty.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister reviews ISIF's investment strategy.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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Deputy Doherty, please. This is Deputy Connolly's question. Let the Minister answer.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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I am not letting him away with that.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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That is the word. What the Deputy is trying to do is to create the impression that I am involved in giving a direction to ISIF-----

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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I did not say that.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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Please, this is Deputy Connolly's question.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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-----regarding individual investment decisions it makes. That does not happen. The word the Deputy used is correct. "Strategic" direction-----

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister should refocus.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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Please, Deputy.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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You should have refocused the fund-----

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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Deputy Doherty, please.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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Strategic direction-----

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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Deputy Doherty.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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-----like you did before and said, "Do not fund the genocide."

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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Deputy Doherty, I will not let you in again if you are going to behave like that.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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If the Deputy really was interested in an answer from me, I would hope he would give me the time to give the answer that this issue deserves.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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Well, I am out of time. I cannot give you-----

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I will reiterate, a Cheann Comhairle, that I do not play a role in issuing a direction to ISIF regarding the purchase of individual Government bonds-----

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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Thank you, Minister.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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The Minister's Government plays a role in doublespeak.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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-----in Israel or elsewhere-----

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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Thank you, Minister.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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-----and ISIF itself has decided-----

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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Tá an t-am caite.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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-----and it has implemented this-----

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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Thank you, Minister.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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-----to no longer hold those shares.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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Shame on you.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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Ceist Uimh. 102, in ainm Catherine Ardagh, is being taken by an Teachta Shay Brennan.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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Maybe that call from the Israeli Minister was more important than you let on.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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Please, Deputy Doherty. Deputy Brennan, le do thoil.