The government must immediately respond to weekend reports that it is set to abandon plans to enact the Occupied Territories Bill, according to Social Democrats foreign affairs spokesperson Patricia Stephenson.<\/p>\n
Senator Stephenson said:<\/p>\n
\u201cYesterday\u2019s report in the Irish Mail on Sunday is deeply concerning. Quoting unnamed Cabinet sources, it suggests the government is set to do a major U-turn on its pledge to enact the long-awaited OTB.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf true, this would fly in the face of promises made by Fianna F\u00e1il and Fine Gael in the run up to last year\u2019s general election. This commitment was reaffirmed in the programme for government, although significantly watered down to only include a ban on goods, and not services, from illegally occupied territories.<\/p>\n
\u201cA report later published by the Foreign Affairs Committee during the summer found there was no legal impediment to enacting a Bill that included both goods and services.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow it appears that the government is about to completely backtrack on this crucial piece of legislation, citing a changed political landscape and the fragility of the ceasefire in the Middle East. Such warped logic ignores the fact that this Bill was first proposed back in 2018, long before Israel\u2019s most recent genocidal campaign in Gaza.<\/p>\n
\u201cCentral to the OTB is the illegal occupation of Palestinian land \u2013 officially found to be unlawful by the International Court of Justice \u2013 by violent Israeli settlers. That is the justification for this Bill.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government is taking us for fools if we are to believe its reported reasons for not proceeding with the OTB. It is far more likely that it is simply bowing to the US threat of economic consequences for Ireland if the Bill is passed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Minister for Foreign Affairs must immediately confirm if the government now intends to scrap the OTB. If this is the case, it will represent an embarrassing capitulation to President Trump\u2019s administration and a gross betrayal of the Palestinian people.\u201d<\/p>\n
December 1, 2025<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The government must immediately respond to weekend reports that it is set to abandon plans to enact the Occupied Territories Bill, according to Social Democrats foreign affairs spokesperson Patricia Stephenson. Senator Stephenson said: \u201cYesterday\u2019s report in the Irish Mail on Sunday is deeply concerning. Quoting unnamed Cabinet sources, it suggests the government is set to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13968,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[408,529,718,595,738,641,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-foreign-affairs","category-gaza","category-israel","category-occupied-territories-bill","category-palestine","category-patricia-stephenson","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n