Bill to limit trade with Israeli settlements could be ready by summer – Harris

The Government’s planned law to restrict trade with illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land could be ready before the summer, Tanaiste Simon Harris has said.

The Government has committed to enacting its own version of the 2018 Occupied Territories Bill, which aims to ban goods from illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

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.

“It could well be (completed this side of the summer),” Mr Harris told reporters in Paris.

He said Foreign Affairs Minister Helen McEntee had been working on the Bill and had posed questions to attorney general Rossa Fanning.

“In fairness to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, she’s done a lot of work on this,” Mr Harris said.

“She has received very detailed advice from the attorney general, she’s gone back with further questions and queries working her way through that.”

Concerns have been raised that the Government’s legislation would only include restrictions on goods and not services in illegal Israeli settlements.

The Government has said covering services is more legally complex, and has sought advice from Mr Fanning.

Mr Harris said a specific timeline for the progress of the Bill has yet “to be determined”.

He added: “I would make the point, obviously, that the priority – quite rightly – for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Government in recent days has been on consular assistance, getting our citizens home, responding to the situation in the Gulf.

“But the Government’s commitment in relation to the Occupied Territories Bill remains.”