PEOPLE BEFORE PROFIT leader Richard Boyd Barrett has said that Ireland should not back away from the Occupied Territories Bill to appease the US or Donald Trump.

As Trump’s return to the White House looms ahead of his inauguration on 20 January, Barrett said that the bill should not be further delayed because of “bullying” from across the Atlantic.

The Occupied Territories Bill would make it an offence to import or sell goods, services or resources originating in illegal settlements anywhere in the world, which would include illegal settlements in Palestine. It was introduced to the Dáil in 2018 but has been stalled in the pipeline for years.

Fine Gael previously argued that the bill would break EU trade law (though some legal experts refuted the validity of this position), but after an International Court of Justice opinion declared all Israeli settlements in Palestine illegal in July 2024, the Attorney General briefed the government on the contextual impact of the ruling and the government’s position reportedly changed. 

Speaking on RTÉ Radio One’s This Week programme today, Richard Boyd Barrett said that the successive governments have “sat on the Occupied Territories Bill” and also “failed to implement sanctions against Israel for ongoing years of crimes against the Palestinian people”.

“We’re a year and a half into a genocide, an absolute massacre of the Palestinian people. We need sanctions and basic human decency,” the Dún Laoghaire TD said.

Asked about whether enacting the bill could damage Ireland’s economy or international relations, Barrett said: “I don’t think we should be kowtow to the bullying of Donald Trump or an American regime that has sponsored the horrors that Israel is committing against the Palestinian people.”

He added that he doesn’t believe there would be “any major implication in any event”.

“The big multinationals that we worry about are making so much profit in this country, I don’t think they’re going to walk away because we impose legitimate, justified and urgently needed sanctions against Israel for the genocide it is committing against Palestine,” Barrett said.