DUBLIN: The frontrunner to become Ireland’s next president has criticized the government for inaction on a planned law to impose sanctions on Israeli settlements in protest over Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
Catherine Connolly, an independent leftwing lawmaker backed by the main opposition Sinn Fein party, urged Dublin not to buckle to pressure from big US companies by watering down the law and stopping just a trickle of trade in goods, not services.
She was speaking before US President Donald Trump said Israel and Hamas had reached a deal for a ceasefire in Gaza and a hostage release under his plan for ending the two-year-old war in the Palestinian enclave.
Ireland’s government has been fiercely critical of Israel’s offensive in Gaza against Hamas. But sources told Reuters the bill is set to be blunted, however, after lobbying by US businesses.
“We cannot allow the government to fail the Palestinian people on this,” she told Reuters, accusing the center-right governing coalition partners Fianna Fail and Fine Gael of “dragging their feet.”
