Taoiseach Simon Harris has said he would be hopeful legislation to ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements would be passed within the first year of the next government.
The Occupied Territories Bill was put forward by the Opposition in 2018 but was blocked for years by the Government over concerns it could fall foul of EU trade rules. In the weeks before the general election, the Government committed to supporting a reworked version of the legislation.
Speaking on Thursday in Brussels, Mr Harris said he hoped the law would be passed by the Oireachtas next year. “I think that pretty much all parties in the general election committed to passing the Occupied Territories Bill, or a form of the Occupied Territories Bill,” he said. “This is something I would like to see happen and I would like to see it happen in the first year of the government,” he said.
Independent Senator Frances Black, who originally introduced the draft law, had been a “very honourable interlocutor” in working with all parties on the text, he said.
The Fine Gael leader said comments by Israel’s foreign minister accusing him of anti-Semitism were made to “distract” from the deaths of tens of thousands of children during Israel’s war in Gaza.
“What it won’t do is deter us, won’t deter me personally, and won’t deter this Irish Government or the next Irish government from continuing to speak up and speak out in favour of international law,” he said. “I’m passionate about Europe, but we’re not doing enough. We’re not doing nearly enough to end the conflict,” he said.
Ireland’s long-standing position in support of Palestine and international law should not come as “any surprise” to US businesses or others, he said. Mr Harris was in Brussels to attend a summit with other leaders of EU states.
Mr Harris would not be drawn on speculation that he would become minister for foreign affairs in the next government. Talks are ongoing between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, as well as a group of Independents, with a view to putting together a coalition government.
“I believe it is possible for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to put together, with others, a stable government that can deliver five budgets,” Mr Harris said.
People did not want government formation talks to descend into lengthy “navel gazing” among politicians. He said it was his hope a coalition agreement would be struck in January.
In light of Donald Trump’s election as president in the United States, Europe needed to do an “awful lot more” to make sure it was economically competitive, Mr Harris said. “I think we have to control what we can control, both from a European Union perspective and from an Irish perspective,” he said.
He indicated the Government will seek to play on the number of jobs Irish companies create in the US, in an attempt to address Mr Trump’s concerns about the large presence of US companies in Ireland.
EU leaders are expected to speak about what more can be done to support Ukraine in its war against Russia, with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy travelling to take part in the discussion.
Russia’s bombing of energy infrastructure was a despicable and “inhumane” attempt to freeze the Ukrainian population and leave them in darkness over the winter, Mr Harris said.
Talk of EU countries posting peacekeeping troops to Ukraine in the event of a settlement in the conflict was “premature”, given there was “no indication” Russia wanted to move towards peace, he said. “That’s perhaps a conversation for another day. It’d be wonderful to get to the point where we can talk about how we maintain the peace rather than how we end the war,” he said.
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