Politicians ask questions about services and the Occupied Territories Bill but get few answers

POLITICIANS QUIZZED OFFICIALS from the Department of Foreign Affairs today about the government’s draft bill to ban goods from Israeli settlements, but the pending legal advice from the Attorney General regarding the inclusion of services hung over much of the discussions. 

The Department’s political director Gerard Keown and legal advisor Declan Smyth appeared before the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and fielded questions from TDs and Senators looking for clarity on the bill and what it entails. 

But it was an area not covered by the draft legislation that featured most often in the queries put to the two civil servants.

Most questions related to the decision not to include services alongside goods in the bill, but politicians made little ground on the topic as Smyth repeatedly said he would not pre-empt advice from the Attorney General (AG), which both he and Keown said would be delivered to the Department “as soon as possible”. 

Numerous members of the Committee requested that the two officials pass the message onto the Department and the AG that time was of the essence, while also noting that the advice would be needed to inform their work on pre-legislative scrutiny.

Fianna Fáil TD Shay Brennan was one of the members who raised concerns about the “tight timeline”.

He said that waiting on the AG advice was “not going to work” while Sinn Féin’s Donnachach Ó Laoghaire was also critical of the fact that the Committee was considering the bill without it. 

Fianna Fáil TD Seán Ó Fearghaíl also described the situation as “very frustrating”. 

“The attorney is very well aware of the time pressures and of the political priority attached to this bill,” Smyth said. 

The AG already provided legal advice about the inclusion of services in the original draft of the Occupied Territories Bill, but Smyth said that because the government is moving ahead with its own version, new advice had been sought. 

The reason why services were not included in this new bill was that there is a regulation at EU level that allows member states to make unilateral decisions on the importation of goods from outside the single market, but there is no corresponding one for services. 

This, he said, had led to a “two-track approach” whereby the government is seeking to deal with goods as an individual state and services through diplomacy at the EU level. 

US pressure

One question asked by Shay Brennan concerned pressure applied by other countries in response to the government’s plans to pass the original Occupied Territories Bill. 

Keown said that there was “contact at official level” from the US government when Joe Biden was president, but he also noted that Tánaiste Simon Harris recently said there has been no such correspondence with the current administration. 

Later in the hearing, Senator Garret Ahern asked Keown if that correspondence could be provided to the Committee.

“I’ll have to take that back to the Tánaiste,” Keown replied. 

The Ditch reported last year that the US ambassador at the time, Claire Cronin, had emailed government leaders expressing concern about the bill’s impact on US companies and warning of “consequences” if the bill was passed as it was.  

A few days later, then-Tánaiste Micheál Martin said he was “not surprised” that the US had concerns. 

Keown also told the Committee today that the Department is currently analysing the potential economic consequences for Ireland if the bill passes.  This, he said, is because there are a number of states who do not agree with Ireland on the issue.

He also told the Committee that a number of EU member states and countries outside the bloc have been in touch to ask questions about the proposed legislation.

Keown said the hope is that other countries follow Ireland’s lead and adopt similar legislation.