LAST UPDATE | 5 Nov
CONCERNS WERE RAISED with Simon Harris in the Dáil today over reports that US Ambassador to Ireland Claire Cronin contacted the Tánaiste and Taoiseach’s office in relation to the enactment of the Occupied Territories Bill.
People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett and Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns asked the Taoiseach about reports in The Ditch publication today over correspondence received from the US ambassador.
Cairns asked the Taoiseach to provide clarity on The Ditch reporting the US ambassador contacted the Government about there being consequences if the Bill were to be enacted.
“Did she offer to speak to the Attorney General? Did that happen? Is this the reason the Government is refusing to enact the occupied territories Bill?” asked Cairns.
“With only a few days left in office, the Government has finally said we can enact the Occupied Territories Bill, but claims it has run out of time.”
Cairns told Harris that Opposition parties had offered two hours on Thursday to help to enact the Bill, but that they have been faced with the Taoiseach deciding “we have run out of time by virtue of when he calls the election”.
“Inaction in the face of genocide is complicity and constantly comparing Ireland’s strong language to a bar that is very low does not fly with the general public any more,” she said.
Meanwhile, Labour’s Ivana Bacik called on the Taoiseach to use the the opposition’s private members time to allow the bill to pass.
Boyd Barrett also raised concerns with the Taoiseach, accusing the government of “kowtowing” to the US government.
“The truth is the government are using excuses, because they are kowtowing to the US government to prevent actual sanctions being imposed on Israel for genocide,” he said.
The Ceann Comhairle intervened at one point stating that it “is not appropriate to make allegations against the ambassador of any country or anybody else who is not here to defend themselves”.
Responding, the Taoiseach did not address the comments and questions about the US ambassador.
“I can only account to this House what I have been informed. I have been informed what I have relayed to this House by the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs. That is my information. That is all I can relay to this House,” he said.
Harris acknowledged the “consensus” across the Dáil now that the legislation should be passed. The Taoiseach said he wanted to ensure the the legislation was not “going to fall” at the first hurdle in the european courts, stating “we have to get this legislation correct”.
The ambassador’s office has been contacted for comment.
Responding to the media reporting today, Tánaiste and Foreign Affairs Minister Micheál Martin said didn’t have “a conversation with the ambassador” over the bill.
“There will always be communication between embassies,” Martin told the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee, further claiming that The Ditch is a “political organisation” that can be “contrived in how it reports things”.
Martin had been appearing to discuss the Occupied Territories Bill to lay out the government’s position on the legislation.
He said there were substantive EU and constitutional law issues with the bill, and it’s “not realistic” for the government to get it over the line before the general election.
Martin said he wanted to the bill to pass in the new Dáil post-election. However, he said it would need to be strengthened in case of “challenges that may come its way”, pointing to the EU Commission or from an EU member state as potential opponents.
The committee hearing got heated when Martin criticised what he called Sinn Féin’s “silence in the United States on the Palestinian question”, adding that it was “extraordinary”.
Carthy, the party’s foreign affairs spokesperson, reacted sharply: “That is bullshit.”
The Cavan-Monaghan TD said that whenever he had met the US ambassador, he had raised the issue of Palestine and added that he had “actually congratulated and thanked” Martin previously when progress had been made on the issue.
“The problem is that then every time you’ve done the right thing it has taken years to bring you to that place,” Carthy said.
With reporting by Eoghan Dalton
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