Pearse Doherty TD: ‘Ireland playing a key role in facilitating Israel to raise money for genocide’
For the first time, in early June 2025, Micheál Martin and Simon Harris called what is happening in Gaza a genocide. This long-awaited recognition of the reality unfolding in Gaza only makes the other decisions they made in the first week of June all the more shameful, writes Sinn Féin spokesperson on finance, Pearse Doherty TD.
On the morning of 3 June 2025, government agreed to gut the Occupied Territories Bill and send it back to square one. Seven years ago, we had legislation. Now, in the words of Paschal Donohoe we have an “approval for the preparation of the general scheme of a bill”. As far from finished legislation as is possible.
On the following day, Martin and Harris made a truly shameful decision to lead their respective parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to vote down legally sound and ready to go legislation – Sinn Féin’s Israeli War Bonds Bill – that would have ended Ireland’s facilitation of Israeli war bonds and finally sanctioned Israel.
The bombs and the bullets that are ripping children apart in Gaza have to be paid for. One of the key ways Israel does that is by raising money on international markets.
To do that in Europe requires a member state’s central bank to give permission. Ireland is the Central Bank that gives Israel the permission it needs to sell bonds they openly market as a means of supporting what they call the war effort.
We brought forward legislation that was drafted by the independent parliamentary legal advisors and underpinned by a full legal opinion. It would give the Minister for Finance the explicit power to instruct the Central Bank to revoke this permission.
While we should never have had anything to do with these war bonds, because we approve the legal requirements for their sale, we now have the power to pull the plug on them across the EU.
This means no war bonds could be sold in Europe until Israel found another willing member state to facilitate it and went through the process – and it is not a quick or straight forward.
This has the potential to be an economic sanction of real substance that Ireland can do.
Government has been misleading the public all week to cover up this act of cowardice. The Government has been changing its story as it scrambles to find an excuse that will wash with the public.
First, it said it was against EU law – citing article 215 of the EU treaties. Nowhere does article 215 say a member state is not allowed to impose economic sanctions – nowhere.
Government dropped this quickly before anyone noticed how ridiculous it was. Instead, it watered it down to ‘could potentially be challenged’. Of course – like any legislation.
“Ireland is the only country in the EU that gives Israel the permission it needs to sell war bonds.”
Sinn Féin spokesperson on finance, Pearse Doherty TD
This has been further exposed as Deputy Gillian Toole, a government-supporting independent TD, broke ranks to vote in favour of the Israeli War Bonds Bill, claiming the Government had not provided information to explain how it contravened EU law.
Then, government said that it cannot legislate at national level to ban something at EU level. I am sure that sounded good to whatever overpaid advisor made it up.
Ireland is the only country in the EU that gives Israel the permission it needs to sell war bonds. Without that permission it cannot sell its war bonds anywhere in the EU. That is irrefutable – the Central Bank has confirmed this.
As the legal opinion of the Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisers said, Ireland revoking the permission for Israel is “constitutionally compliant, compatible with EU law and in accordance with international law”.
After all the nonsense failed, the Government started attacking on technical language.
Bonds are not sold ‘through’ the Central Bank, it lectured. Whatever word they want us to use does not change the reality of what is happening. Ireland is playing a key role in facilitating Israel to raise money for genocide and we have the power to remove that permission.
I challenged the Government to produce its legal advice ahead of the vote. Shamefully the Government seem determined to go back to the old play book. We saw it for years with the Occupied Territories Bill:
• dismiss and talk down to legal experts and drafters; and
• reference legal advice, they supposedly have received but no one gets to see.
In reality, there is no legal justification for government’s action.
This was an act of cowardice pure and simple and will be remembered for a long time.
