Government wants to pass Bill banning trade with occupied Palestinian territories ‘this summer'
The Government wants to pass new laws banning trade with illegally occupied territories in Palestine 'this summer', Minister of State
Thomas Byrne
has said.
The timeline for passage of the
Bill
, which is being drafted, has been the subject of much political scrutiny amid
Israel's
ongoing bombardment of
Gaza
.
Speaking on RTÉ's Week in Politics programme on Sunday, Meath East TD Mr Byrne echoed comments made by his party colleague and chair of the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee John Lahart.
'We want to see it passed before the summer,' he said. However, he said the Opposition would put down 'amendment after amendment' to the legislation 'designed to push the boat out, designed to get something that can't be done'.
READ MORE
'I certainly hope to have it done this summer, we want to do it,' Mr Byrne said. The draft legislation, once approved by the Cabinet, must then be sent to the Foreign Affairs Committee where it will begin the process of pre-legislative scrutiny.
The Government has been cautious about the idea of including trade in services and trade in goods in the legislation, arguing its legal advice is that this would be problematic.
Speaking on the same programme, Social Democrats TD for Wicklow Jennifer Whitmore reiterated her party's call for the Dáil to sit over the summer if required. The lower house is due to take its summer break in mid-July, meaning the standard timeline for passing any new law restricting trade is extremely limited.
Mr Byrne was critical of Dáil motions last week seeking to ban the Irish Central Bank from its role in approving Israeli government bonds, which followed a similar Sinn Féin motion in recent weeks.
He said the party is seeking to 'tear apart the Government, increase division in the country, and try and use this to give political advantage for themselves'.
Ms Whitmore indicated the Opposition will bring the issue back to the floor of the Dáil soon.
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Irish Times
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Letters to the Editor. June 16th: On Israel's war with Iran, benefits of cycling and recycling
Sir, – Israel aspires to being a parliamentary democracy, yet the Knesset was not consulted or informed in advance of the attack on Iran, effectively a declaration of war. This at a time when Israeli troops are already engaged in the destruction of Gaza. Israeli citizens are now trying to cope with the inevitable military response from Iran without their public representatives having the opportunity to give their opinion. It appears that only the US has been afforded that facility. Indeed, the Israeli prime minister has said that he is seeking regime change in Iran, something even the US refrained from pursuing in the first Gulf war. It is no coincidence that the day before the attack on Iran, the Israeli government just managed to reject an opposition Bill to dissolve parliament. This legislation would have enabled Israeli voters to finally have their say on the war in Gaza and to participate in an election which opinion polls indicate Mr Netanyahu would lose. READ MORE It is now clear that the Israeli government has abandoned all pretence of democratic accountability or adherence to international law. The title of rogue state is hardly misplaced. – Yours, etc, MARTIN MCDONALD, Terenure, Dublin 12. Sir, – Brendan Butler (Letters, June 14th) thinks Israel needs to be brought to justice for flouting international law. International law is regularly invoked to be used against Israel but for some reason such calls are absent when it comes to Israel's enemies. When Hamas and Hizbullah were attacking Israel it was greeted by the international community with a collective shrug until Israel hit back. When the regime in Tehran stated again and again its goal of eradicating Israel, outside of a handful of countries, there was barely a peep. Our government decided this was no big deal and opened a new embassy there. If people invoke international law when Israel acts but are silent when its enemies are acting against Israel they really aren't serious about international law and just see it as a stick with which to beat Israel. – Yours, etc, PAUL WILLIAMS, Kilkee, Co Clare. Sir, – In its statement criticising Israel, Russia said that: 'Unprovoked military strikes against a sovereign UN member state, its citizens, peaceful cities, and nuclear energy infrastructure are categorically unacceptable.' Who said irony is dead? – Yours, etc, PAUL KEAN, Conyngham Rd, Dublin 8. Sir, – I noted that at United Nations it was stated that (yet again) that Israel has the right to defend itself against attack. The implication seems to be that other countries have no right to defend themselves from Israeli aggression. – Yours, etc, GILL MCCARTHY, Shillelagh, Co Wicklow. Sir, – With the escalation of the Israel and Iran war and the possibility of a nuclear war US president Donald Trump is to be congratulated on his supplying bombs and missiles to Israel which will certainly make his birthday one to remember if anyone survives. – Yours, etc, DAVID MURNANE, Dunshaughlin, Co Meath. The price of oil Sir, – The average price of 500 litres of home heating oil on June 10th was €447. Israel struck Iran on the 12th. The price today, the 13th, is €459 and climbing rapidly. The oil in the storage tanks already in Ireland, or the oil currently on the high seas in tankers cannot possibly have become more expensive. This is a scam. Needless to say the decline in prices (if it comes), will be agonisingly slow. What government agency is supposedly in charge of this rip off? – Yours, etc, LIAM MCMULLIN, Co Roscommon. In defence of Greta Thunberg Sir, – Regarding Finn McRedmond's column of June 12th ('Greta Thunberg is hard to like, but don't dismiss her '). There is a great deal to like about Greta Thunberg: her truthful, fearless climate doomerism, the omni-cause activism, the annoyance she inspires in the worst corners of the conservative media, the enviable assurance that without urgent attention the planet is doomed. Through a carefully managed coalition of an exploitative establishment she is undermined at every turn but Thunberg holds a status based on the consistency, simplicity and directness of her rhetorical approach. And we are fortunate to have among us a messianic young person who is unafraid to speak truths such as 'the world is getting more grim by the day' and that it is facing 'a sixth mass extinction' event. – Yours, etc, FINTAN DRURY, Sandymount, Dublin 4. Bloomsday and holidays Sir, – I note with interest the proposal in Frank McNally's An Irishman's Diary (June 11th), Bloomsday should be declared a national holiday. Might I have the temerity to suggest that it should be almost declared one as virtually everyone with whom I discuss the book has almost read it, myself included. – Yours, etc, MICHAEL GLEESON. Killarney, Co Kerry. Sir, – Joe Dunne proudly trumpets his personal and crucial modus vivendi approach to tackling Ulysses, googling galore as he goes. ( 'A novel way of reading Ulysses', Letters, June 13th). Preserving his literary sanity by sitting in front of a computer he engages the labyrinthine trajectory that is Joyce's masterpiece by inviting Mr Google along the enchanted way – a 'not-for-the faint-hearted' cognitive camino of multitudinous creative caverns. I would suggest he could better take it all in with his eyes closed, reclining at ease and spare his laptop the hassle, by tuning in to RTÉ's archival radio version from 1982 which captures all nuances in a compelling enacted reading of same 'wonder-book'. Letting it all seep in via the professionally modulated airwave version is 'yer only man'. – Yours, etc, JIM COSGROVE, Co Waterford. Regional development Sir, – Debate has for many years been focusing on pressures within Dublin as the capital city regarding housing supply and public transport. More recently, there has been much discussion on the Dublin Airport passenger cap which is expected to be exceeded. While all of the four Dublin local authorities, as well as Oireachtas members for the region, will of course be expected to continue to strive to tackle these challenges, another somewhat more minimised dimension in mainstream discourse on these matters concerns balanced regional development. Most strikingly for a national standpoint, there ought to be much more of a focus within Government as regards why a mainstream city such as Galway city, which has all the necessary infrastructure to grow more economically including a well-established university, train station and surrounding roads network does not appear to figure more in region-by-region population forecasting. At present, the population of Galway city is about 85,000 where in comparison the population under the remit of the Dundrum Area Committee alone of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown is by itself about a population of 100,000, which will sharply expand in the decade ahead. Galway city is also a gateway city to the wider west of Ireland region as a whole. While I was born and raised in south Dublin, I did spend three years living as a child for a time in Ennis in Co Clare and in such an urban location there are an abundance of shops, school places, playing fields and municipal services provisions as well as housing units with generally a greater typical amount of square footage. There are many other similar towns around Ireland offering such resources and amenities yet the mainstream focus in debate remains most persistently on Dublin. One of the impacts with more housing construction in Dublin for instance is that at many more stops in the future the already overcrowded Luas will become almost impossible for passengers for board, necessitating a doubling of bus frequency for many bus routes to be overseen by the National Transport Authority. If there were to be better meaningful balance in population growth strategy nationwide, such pressures may not become as acute. – Yours, etc, CLLR JOHN KENNEDY (FG), Dún Laoghaire. Co Dublin. Happy Birthday Sir, – Would it be curmudgeonly of us not to wish dear leader Kim Don Un a Happy Birthday! – Yours, etc, CATHY TRACEY, Dublin. Cycling and transport Sir,– The Government has conceded that it won't reach its target of one million electric cars on Irish roads by 2030. Good. Not only was this target wildly ambitious, it was also deeply irresponsible. Yes, we should electrify all cars, but we should not pursue a target that seeks to add more, and larger, cars to our roads. Electric or not, planning for more cars means more congestion, more inactivity, and yes, even with electric vehicles, continued problems with local air pollution, to name a few negatives. It should be clear by now that cars cannot be the future of transport. So what about a different target? I propose a million people cycling daily by 2030. Wildly ambitious? Yes, but the health benefits, the reduction in emissions, and the improvements in air quality would be enormous. Would this require a massive investment in active transport infrastructure? Yes, but remember, the benefits of cycling are almost endless. It is worth it. – Yours, etc, DR OLA LØKKEN NORDRUM, Irish Doctors for the Environment, Dublin 4. Recycling problems Sir, - With all the publicity given to recycling nowadays, not much is given to the problem of two or more types of material in the same item. I have just used some cooked turkey which came in a pack consisting of one side paper and the other plastic and the price sticker (paper) stuck on the plastic. Trying to disentangle this is almost impossible. What happens when these items arrive in the recycling centre? Are they painstakingly separated by the workers there? My guess is that they go into the discard pile. However, this is more than likely a non-issue. The recent news that about 90 per cent of the plastic recovered in our Deposit Return Scheme is exported is a serious indictment of our commitment to recycling. We need to take responsibility for our own waste. It is costly and environmentally unfriendly to rely on exports and we have no control over the final treatment (or plain dumping) of our rubbish. – Yours etc, EITHNE O'CALLAGHAN, Dublin 4.
Irish Times
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Republican priest Fr Patrick Ryan dies aged 95
A controversial republican priest who became the first Catholic cleric to contest an election in Ireland has died after a short illness. Fr Patrick Ryan, who was a native of Rossmore, Co Tipperary, died in Dublin on Sunday aged 95. Fr Ryan was ordained a priest in 1954 at the Pallottine College in Thurles. He later served in Tanzania and London. In January 1990, he was dismissed from the Pallottine Fathers. He no longer had permission to say Mass or administer the sacraments. In 1988, Ryan was accused of involvement in Provisional IRA activity, and was the subject of two unsuccessful extradition requests. That year the then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher dubbed him 'a very dangerous man'. READ MORE An election poster for the priest. Ryan, dubbed The Padre, denied the accusation in an interview with The Tipperary Star, saying he had raised money both inside and outside Europe for victims on the nationalist side in the Troubles but had 'never bought explosives for the IRA or anybody else', and had never been requested by the paramilitary group to do so. The priest allegedly became the main contact for many years between the IRA and one of its main sources of weaponry and finance – Muammar Gaddafi's Libyan regime. His meetings with Gaddafi were documented in journalist Jennifer O'Leary's book The Padre: The True story of the Irish Priest who armed the IRA with Gaddaffi's money. Ryan was the first priest to contest an election in Ireland, when he ran in the 1989 European Parliament election in the Munster constituency as an Independent with Sinn Féin support. He failed to be elected but received over 30,000 votes. In a 2019 interview with the BBC, Ryan was asked if he was involved in any of the incidents of which Ms Thatcher had accused him, to which he responded: 'I would say most of them. One way or another, yes I had a hand in most them – yes, she was right'.
Irish Times
5 hours ago
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The Irish Times view on the National Economic Dialogue : all sides must focus on delivery
The National Economic Dialogue, which takes place on Monday, is the key public consultation which the Government holds before the October budget. It will be followed shortly after by the Summer Economic Statement, which is the official outline of the general direction of policy, including the room for manoeuvre on budget day itself. It is customary at the dialogue for the government of the day to underline the uncertainties it faces, in part to lower expectations of what can be achieved on budget day. This year, these uncertainties are all too real. To the ongoing war in Ukraine and the unpredictability of the economic policies of the Trump administration can now be added a volatile situation in the Middle East. What does this mean for budget policy? With relatively strong tax figures and a falling national debt burden, the Government is in a strong starting position. Vital investment programmes must continue. But the outlook is clouded and risks in relation to the international economy and corporation tax remain in focus. The Fiscal Advisory Council in its latest assessment suggested that there could even be some more upside to corporation tax revenues, given the increase in the rate on big companies and the running down of tax reliefs. This may well be the case. But this will leave Ireland even more reliant on a few big taxpayers. And Trump's policies also pose a risk to corporate tax receipts, even if the shape of this is not yet clear. READ MORE Against this backdrop, it is essential that the budget remains in surplus and that the State continues to put cash aside in two funds set up to save excess revenues for future use. Better control of day-to-day spending is also required. The dialogue needs to take place in this context, rather than on the assumption that spending overruns can continue, offering more increases across the board in day-to-day spending. Realism is essential in a world where unpredictability and adverse shocks now seem to be the norm. And this must extend to Ministers right across Government too, many of whom will be hoping that further ahead-of-inflation spending increases will be available for their departments and particular priorities. Rather than splashing the cash, the Government needs to identify a few priority areas for additional spending and focus much more on delivery across the board. As Trinity College Dublin economics professor Carol Newman, who chaired last year's dialogue, wrote in her summary of its proceedings: 'The removal of sluggish processes and disjointed systems is important and this can only be achieved with joined up thinking and transparent dialogue.' In the sessions on Monday, the most valuable thing which the delegates could do is to focus on this issue of delivery.
