People Before Profit are using their Private Members’ Business next Wednesday, 19th November, for a joint motion from the left opposition parties and independents.
The motion calls for the Government to urgently progress and amend its Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Bill 2025 to include a ban on trade in services as well as in goods, in line with the 2024 ruling of the ICJ and the unanimous position of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade.
On Monday, Richard Boyd Barrett, Frances Black, Mary Lou McDonald, Holly Cairns, Ivana Bacik, and Roderic O’Gorman will jointly brief the media on the Plinth at Leinster House.
The motion will be debated on Wednesday morning and voted on on Wednesday evening.
Deputy Paul Murphy said “The big lesson of Catherine Connolly’s presidential election victory is that the left can win when it works together and mobilises people. If the left cooperates to work with powerful movements in communities and in the streets, we can force the Government to act. “It is in this spirit of left cooperation that People Before Profit will use our private members’ time next Wednesday morning to introduce a joint motion, together with Solidarity, Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats, the Labour Party, the Green Party, the 100% Redress Party and left independents. Our call is very simple – to stop the delays and the watering down – and to implement a full ban on trade in goods and services with the illegal Israeli settlements before Christmas.”
Senator Frances Black said “The findings of the International Court of Justice, which Government have pledged to respect, were absolutely clear: trade with the illegal Israeli settlements, both goods and services, must end. This is also the unanimous position of the Foreign Affairs Committee. It’s now a year since the Government parties pledged pre-election to pass this Bill, and it still has not even been debated in Dáil Éireann. It’s time for them to stop delaying, show some courage and act.
“In September, Spain announced its own version of the OTB and it was passed fully into law a month later, banning the import of goods but also the advertisement of services. Why have Spain done in a month what we haven’t been able to do in eight years? Where is the same political will and urgency? There is a real risk now that because of a so-called ceasefire, EU states may start to walk back on their commitments. This would be a huge mistake, a straight route back to a decades-long and unjust status quo. What we need now is delivery, not delay.”
Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett said “Despite the genocidal horror inflicted on Gaza over the last two years, and before that decades of ethnic cleansing and illegal annexation of Palestinian territory, our Government has not imposed a single sanction on the Israeli occupation regime. Successive governments have paid lip service to the idea of solidarity with Palestine, but in reality have deliberately delayed even the minimal sanctions contained in the Occupied Territories Bill, initiated by Senator Black 8 years ago, and the current Government continues to delay. The opposition parties of the left have come together to agree this motion that demands that the Government follows the recommendation of all parties at the Foreign Affairs Committee and includes a ban on trade in services as well as in goods.
“The Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign and others have called a demonstration for 5.30pm at the Dáil on Kildare Street to support the motion. We urge as many people as possible to attend the protest to put pressure on the Government to implement a full ban on trade in both goods and services with the illegal Israeli settlements in Palestine. It is the absolute minimum we can do to attempt to sanction the Israeli regime and deter it from committing further crimes against the people of Palestine.”