Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

No, just aspects of the amendments themselves. The thrust of your argument is well made; do not worry about that. I think it is important for the totality of the debate to examine some of the impact of the entire drafting of the legislation and what considerations a government may have to take in hand in respect of utilisation, as per the middle part of amendment No. 32, in respect of the use of the fourth Geneva Convention and the protocols therein. It is important to state when we use any of these protocols within legislation or as an amendment to legislation that they are in themselves extremely significant documents and set out a considerable amount in respect of international humanitarian law.It is very important the State is able to withstand any constitutional challenge to the use of these protocols. While they have been adopted in certain parts of domestic legislation, there is a distinction between adopting protocols in national law and using the fourth convention as a basis for determining or defining an occupied territory on which to base investment decisions by the State. I remember that when Senator Higgins co-sponsored the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill 2018 in the previous Seanad, of which I was a Member, we had quite a detailed debate quite late into the evening talking about western Sahara, because the focus was about how we define occupied territories at large. I know of the Senator's particular interest in that part of the world, even though the thrust of the legislation remains the occupied Palestinian territories. In that regard, the Senator is well aware of the discussions at pre-Committee Stage scrutiny in respect of the Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill 2023, a Private Members' Bill, which I will discuss in a few minutes at the discretion of the Cathaoirleach. In particular, when contributing to pre-Committee Stage scrutiny, Department officials outlined a number of issues with the proposed Private Members' Bill that I believe are relevant to this debate and in particular to these amendments.

One of the issues identified was that of creating a reliance on a definition determined by an external legal instrument and including it in domestic law. In making law in this State, under Article 15.2 of the Constitution, the Oireachtas has sole and exclusive authority. I point to the potential issue of providing an automatic legislative standing to a decision made outside the State that has not been agreed by the Oireachtas and can be changed by such an external source without further consideration by the Oireachtas. As I mentioned previously, the Private Members' Bill that is on the Order Paper, namely, the Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill 2023, which seeks to achieve a similar outcome, is being considered by the Oireachtas committee at pre-Committee detailed scrutiny stage at which the Senator is contributing. When officials from the Department were before that committee, they set out that the text of the Bill presented a number of challenges that also apply to these amendments.

I wish also to lay out exactly the detail of how the NTMA has divested from certain investments in the occupied Palestinian territories, as referred to by the Senator. The director of ISIF outlined that, as of 31 December 2023, ISIF's direct investments in companies on the UN database totalled approximately €4.2 million in 11 companies. He also outlined that ISIF's indirect investments include eight companies totalling approximately €9.4 million. ISIF has since taken an investment decision to divest from six of these companies with a total value of approximately €2.95 million. These six companies include a number of banks and one supermarket chain. Following the recent divestment on the basis of the risk that presented, ISIF will continue to keep under review the alignment of relevant investments within its investment parameters and commercial objectives. In practice, this means that if any other investment has or is later found to have the same risk characteristics as those six companies, those other investments then fall for consideration of divestment.

The final point I will make on this issue relates to the investment policies and strategies of each of the funds. As the Senator will see, there is a new legislative requirement that the NTMA, in the management and investment of the resources of the future Ireland fund, the infrastructure, climate and nature fund, and the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund will be required to have regard to environmental, social and governance risks, as we discussed in detail on Second Stage. The proposed framework will allow the flexibility to address investment or divestment in a way that primary legislation on individual environmental, social or governance issues does not. These can include issues such as an appropriate stance towards human rights abuses.

The Senator will also be aware of the actions taken by the State in respect of the ongoing conflict in and attack on Gaza and the wider Palestinian people by the State of Israel in terms of our diplomatic efforts and yesterday's historic recognition of Palestine as a state. As regards the Private Members' Bill I discussed, the Government has not made a decision about this Bill and is awaiting the pre-Committee scrutiny report. I note the Senator's intention with regard to using the Fourth Geneva Convention to define the occupied territories and I welcome that suggestion, despite the caveats because there are significant legal and policy challenges with adopting any legislation towards any occupied territories. However, it is on this wider basis, given that the Government has yet to decide its approach to the Private Members' Bill, which is very instructive in terms of the debate we are having here, and that, in the event of any decision to legislate, further legal and policy work would be needed if we were to accept it, that I cannot accept these three amendments at this stage.