FORMER JUSTICE MINISTER Alan Shatter has strongly criticised a decision by a Sinn Féin councillor to call a meeting next Monday to discuss the Occupied Territories Bill, which would ban trade between Ireland and illegal Israeli settlements in Palestine.

Monday marks the first anniversary of the deadly 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel. 

Sinn Féin councillor Daithí Doolan has written to his fellow councillors asking them to a briefing on Monday evening ahead of the usual monthly meeting of Dublin City Council. 

Doolan has put forward a motion seeking the support of councillors to call on the Government to enact the bill. 

Depending on how many votes the council meeting gets through at its evening meeting, members may or may not get to cast their vote on the matter, should it be put to a ballot. 

The earlier meeting – scheduled for 5.30pm on Monday – provides an opportunity for Sinn Féin councillors to brief members from other parties and groupings on the motion, Doolan said today. 

Shatter, who is a member of Ireland’s Jewish community, posted to X, formerly Twitter, this morning to accuse Sinn Féin and Doolan of “desecrating” the memory of people who died in Israel during the 7 October attacks.

Speaking to The Journal this afternoon Doolan said that the 5.30pm meeting was a common practice and gave councillors a chance to brief other members on motions. 

“The date of the meeting is out of my hands altogether,” Doolan said. 

He said he submitted the motion on 25 September and wanted to “build up momentum” in the campaign to pursuade the Government to pass the bill. 

The monthly council meeting typically takes place on the first Monday of each month. 

He accused Shatter, in his remarks, of fanning “the flames of confusion, division and conflict”.

When Doolan’s comments were put to Shatter he said the councillor’s claim that he had no control over the dates was a “pathetic excuse”.

“Anyone who has an insight on the real complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will recognise that that date was the day of the largest slaughter of Jewish people since the Holocaust,” Shatter said.

He added:  “If the Sinn Féin councillor had any sense of decency he will postpone that meeting on the seventh of October.” 

The unprecedented attack by Hamas on 7 October resulting in the deaths of 1,205 people in Israel, most of them civilians. 

Israel’s retaliatory attacks on Gaza have killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, a majority of them civilians, according to the territory’s health ministry.