THERE IS NO timeline for the passage of a Bill limiting trade with the Occupied Palestinian Territories, as the Foreign Affairs Minister Helen McEntee says she is waiting for advice from the Attorney General.

Over the weekend, Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns said the government is trying to “gut or shelve” the Occupied Territories bill, calling for the legislation to progress. 

The timeline around the enactment of the Bill continues to be uncertain, with the minister refusing to set out when the legislation will be passed, despite it being one of the key promises made before the general election. 

The Occupied Territories Bill, which was first introduced by Independent Senator Frances Black in 2018, proposed making it an offence “for a person to import or sell goods or services originating in an occupied territory or to extract resources from an occupied territory in certain circumstances”.

The Government then amended the Bill to propose making it a crime under the Customs Act 2015 to import goods into Ireland that originate in Israeli settlements built over what is legally recognised as Palestinian land.

However, services such as tourism and IT are as of yet excluded in the latest draft of the legislation, something opposition TDs have repeatedly called for to be included. 

The coalition has committed to passing a ban on goods from illegal settlements but it has been accused of slow progress on enacting legislation.

Priority legislation

The Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Bill is listed under “priority publication” in the Government’s spring legislative programme.

Pre-legislative scrutiny was completed last July.

Last month, the Taoiseach denied the government was moving away from the passing the legislation, but did state that services was “non-implementable”.

“I’ve been consistent on that for quite some time now in terms of implementability of services,” he told RTÉ’s This Week programme.

Advice on the matter has been sought from Attorney General Rossa Fanning.

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McEntee received advice from him before Christmas but said she had further questions.

The Journal asked the minister about the timeline for the bill this morning, for which McEntee said:

“I have to wait for the Attorney General to come back with the advice to me and we’ll work through it.

“But obviously it has passed through a number of different stages and we will work on it as we would any other piece of legislation.”

Pressed on whether it could be done by summer, McEntee reiterated that she was waiting on the advice in relation to services.