Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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195. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade following his statement at the Paris Middle East peace summit regarding the urgent need for action and the danger caused by settlement building (details supplied), if he will act on recommendations by several leading NGO's such as Sadaka, Trócaire and the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and Christian Aid, to consider seeking an European Union wide ban on all settlement goods; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17836/16]

Charles Flanagan (Laois, Fine Gael)
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The European Union has taken a number of actions to distinguish between settlements and Israel proper, and between settlement goods and Israeli goods. Ireland has supported and indeed advocated for many of these. Goods from settlements are charged a higher tariff to enter the European market; meat from settlements may not be certified by Israeli veterinary authorities, and is thus in effect excluded; settlement goods may not be misleadingly labelled as produce of Israel. Other measures prevent the spending of EU research funding in institutions located in settlements, and advise citizens against investing in settlements. However, as successive Ministers have made clear in the Dáil, there is no possibility of reaching agreement at EU level on an outright ban on settlement goods.