Why hasn't the Attorney General's advice on the Occupied Territories Bill been published?

Ceist? is asking if Attorney General, Rossa Fanning's, advice on the implementation of the Occupied Territories Bill (OTB) will be published?

While it isn't common practice for the attorney general's advice to the government of the day to be shared, AG Rossa Fanning's advice on the Occupied Territories Bill is an outlier.

The OTB was authored by Senator Francis Black in 2018 and seeks to ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements in Occupied Palestinian Territory.

The bill has been before our legislators for nearly eight years, with consecutive government and opposition parties clashing over its legal implementation and its scope on what it will ban.

Opposition members have continuously called for the OTB to be enacted banning both goods and services as soon as possible to show solidarity with the Palestinian people and to encourage other EU member states to follow suit.

The Government of the day has consistently stalled the bill, claiming it may not be in line with the Irish constitution or EU law and that it might also affect US multinational corporations that operate in Ireland.

The Government have sought rounds of legal advice from the Attorney General over these points of difference, however the latest message is that they are still looking into the implementation of the bill.

All political parties in Dáil Eireann, bar Independent Ireland, in their 2024 general election manifestos supported banning imports from the Occupied Territories. The political divide is whether services should be included in that ban.

Ireland only imports around €200,000 a year worth of goods from Israeli settlements, the majority of which is fruit and vegetables.

While there is no reliable data on the value of services we import, there is worry that banning services may however affect multinational companies due to anti-BDS laws in the US.

These laws which protect Israel and it's illegal settlements from boycott movements have been passed in the majority of US states are a part of considerations as to whether the OTB will be passable with services included.

Speaking in the Dáil in October last year, Michéal Martin said "The Attorney General is coming back to us, on a number of fronts. One, its implementability, by the way. And the feedback I’m getting it’s not just implementable."

However whether this is the actual legal advice received by the Michéal Martin's government is disputed. In February 2025, The Ditch leaked attorney general Rossa Fanning's advice on the Occupied Territories Bill.

Law professor, Conor Crummey, from Maynooth University offered expertise on The Ditch's reporting in The Journal.

"The Attorney General carried out a careful analysis of the potential issues under both EU and domestic constitutional law. He pointed to certain issues of constitutional and EU law, but made clear that these issues could be resolved with minor amendments prior to enactment. Notably, nowhere in his advice did the Attorney General say that the bill’s scope needed to be confined to exclude services.

If the constitutional issues were unrelated to the inclusion of services in the bill, the obvious conclusion is that the exclusion of services is a political choice."

The Programme for Government commits to passing legislation that bans goods from Occupied Palestinian Territories and this year the Foreign Affairs Joint Oireachtas Committee also recommended that the bill should be passed with the inclusion of services.

This is why Ceist? is asking if the legal advice on the Occupied Territories Bill can be published, in the interest of transparency, as the Government continues to claim uncertainty over whether services can be included.

Unless leaked, legal advice received by the Government isn't published. Last year while Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar explained why;

"The Attorney General provides legal advice to the Government and this advice is subject to legal professional privilege, in the same way as the legal advice provided to a private client by any solicitor or barrister. The proper operation of Government and, thereby, the public interest is served by this privilege as it facilitates the confidential consideration by Government of sensitive matters."

One might argue, that in this case - given the widespread political and public support for the bill, and legal experts disputing the government's interpretation of the advice it is receiving - it would actually serve the public interest for the attorney general's advice to be shared.