Ireland aims to pass law curbing goods trade with West Bank settlements by mid-July, FM says

Ireland aims to pass a law curbing goods trade with West Bank settlements by mid-July, Foreign Minister Helen McEntee says.

Ireland’s government, one of the most outspoken critics of Israel, first promised to sanction Israeli settlements in October 2024. The legislation has since been held up by pressure from opposition politicians who aimed to extend the ban also to services trade, on one side, and international company lobbyists seeking to scrap the bill, on the other.

Sources told Reuters last October that the bill was set to be limited to goods. Prime Minister Micheal Martin confirmed that last week and said widening the scope to services was neither “implementable” nor “viable.”

Limiting the bill to goods only will impact just a handful of products, such as fruit, which are worth just 200,000 euros ($234,660) a year, Ireland’s Central Statistics Office said.

Business groups warned that the wider category of services could pull foreign multinational companies into unworkable sanctions.

“We have consistently advocated for a peaceful solution… but it’s very clear from the actions taken most recently by the Israeli government, but in particular the continued increase in settler violence, the escalation in settler violence in the West Bank, the continued violence in Lebanon, that they have no desire to take this particular road,” McEntee tells reporters.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.