Tánaiste Simon Harris told TDs he will bring a memo to Government next week on the Occupied Territories Bill to ban imports from illegal Israeli settlements.
He made his comments during a three hour Dáil debate on the war in Gaza with universal condemnation of Israel for the catastrophe. One Sinn Féin TD described Israel as modern-day Nazis during the debate.
Sinn Féin Meath West TD Johnny Guirke said: “Palestinians are being massacred by Israel, using military grade weapons on tents, burning children to death and Apache helicopters to deliberately target fleeing families”.
He added: “Israel must be stopped now. They are the Nazis of the modern world, a disgusting Zionist regime of supremacist beings, who attack every stand against them as anti-Semitic.
“I think most of the world are just plain sick of this victimhood and right of entitlement to slaughter the Palestinian people at will.”
Mr Harris told TDs that work on Occupied Territories Bill legislation is “well progressed within my department”. The original Bill to ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements in Palestine and other occupied territories included goods and services, but the revised legislation is expected to exclude services.
Mr Harris said the original Bill required amendment to bring it in line with the Constitution “and to try to reduce the risk of EU infringement proceedings”.
The Tánaiste said he believed the world has “now reached a moment of clarity” and “what is happening goes against our humanity”.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin said earlier that the EU-Israel Association Agreement should be suspended while a review is being conducted.
The European Union has agreed to review the agreement following backing by a majority of member states to a Dutch proposal.
Mr Martin said he “strongly” welcomed the decision to review Israel’s compliance with its human rights obligations, which Ireland with Spain had initially called for.
Mr Martin said “after 19 long and brutal months of war on the people of Gaza, I believe we are at a turning point”.
“Increasingly, some of Israel’s closest allies are calling on it to change course. I urge Israel to listen not just in the interests of the people of Gaza but in its own interests. This is not who the people of Israel are.
“I said recently, it is simply wrong in principle and in law to inflict hunger and suffering on a civilian population, whatever the circumstances. And this behaviour clearly constitutes a war crime.”
He said he heard comments from Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Yoel Smotrich, “speaking openly about conquering Gaza” and “pushing the population south and into third countries.
“This a senior minister of the Israeli government articulating in no uncertain terms what the agenda is, and it is absolutely reprehensible.”
The Taoiseach added “we need to say consistently also that the hostages need to be released”.
“It is also absolutely unacceptable that innocent people were abducted and remain hostages so long” after the Hamas attack in October 2023, he said.
“Hamas need to, in my view, stop the war, disband because they’ve caused nothing but misery to their own people. The Israeli government needs to stop what is happening right now.”
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald described Israel’s actions as “criminal and genocidal” and western governments are complicit, “protecting Israel” from sanctions.
Ms McDonald said it was “an obscenity” and “repulsive” that “the Irish Central Bank oversees the sale of Israeli war bonds right across the EU”.
She challenged the Government to back her party’s Bill to end the bank’s role in selling war bonds that finance Israel’s war machine.
Labour leader Ivana Bacik said her party would bring a motion to the Dáil next week “to mandate you to table an emergency resolution at the UN General Assembly, to note the failure of the Security Council and to call for collective measures to secure a lasting cease fire, a sustainable peace agreement and an international peacekeeping course for Gaza to allow humanitarian aid to flow and save lives”.
