An attempt to include a ban on the trade of services and an advertisement of services to the Occupied Territories Bill has failed at committee stage. The proposed legislation, formally entitled the Israeli Settlements (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Bill 2026, is due to be passed within the next month. The new law will prohibit the import of goods from Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. But the Government has been harshly criticised for excluding a ban on the trade of services from the Bill. The legislation completed committee stage on Thursday. And cross-party TDs have been attempting to add services back into the legislation at the Oireachtas foreign affairs committee. The committee had heard criticisms that the Government’s approach to the Bill was an attempt to avoid “annoying the Americans”. Minister for Foreign Affairs Helen McEntee conceded to the committee earlier this week that a Bill that does not include a ban on the trade in services will not be fully compliant with international law. On Thursday, Sinn Féin TD Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire pressed an amendment that would have added a new section to the Bill which included a ban on the trade of services. Following a vote, the amendment was lost by six votes to four, with all Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael members of the committee voting against the proposal. Ó Laoghaire also pressed an amendment which would have added a ban on the advertisement of services with the illegally occupied Palestinian territories to the Bill. Under legislation introduced in 2025, Spain banned the trade of goods and also the advertising and promotion of services with the illegal Israeli settlements. The Irish Government had claimed that its legal advice had said that any ban on the trade of services would not be as legally robust as a ban on the trade of goods. McEntee had been asked how Spain had avoided facing legal action for its ban on the advertisement of the trade of services. She told TDs: “They have different legal structures, whether or not anything will happen or come from it, I don’t know. It hasn’t to date, but at the moment obviously, they are applying theirs in a limited way specific to adverts as I’m aware that are in Spanish language.” The proposal to include a similar ban to the Republic’s Occupied Territories Bill was also lost by six votes to four. Those who voted for both proposals were Opposition committee members Ó Laoghaire and fellow Sinn Féin TD Cathy Bennett, Independent Ireland TD Ken O’Flynn and Labour’s Robert O’Donoghue.How will Ireland navigate the EU presidency? Listen | 48:56TDs who opposed included McEntee and fellow Fine Gael TDs Brian Brennan and Noel McCarthy, and Fianna Fáil TDs John Lahart, Shay Brennan and Seán Ó Fearghaíl.The Government also rejected a proposal to amend the Bill to ban trade in goods that included even a small component from the occupied territories, which is marked as coming from “Israel proper”. McEntee told the committee on Thursday that she believed amending the Bill in this way would expose it to greater legal challenge. “If we introduce legislation that isn’t robust, it’s not going to encourage others to do the same, so it’s to try and be as robust as we can,” she said.People Before Profit-Solidarity TD Richard Boyd-Barrett told the Minister for Foreign Affairs that he believed a fear of legal action was also stopping the Government “I feel like paraphrasing Karl Marx here. There’s a spectre haunting the Minister, the spectre of possible legal action, which seems to be the reason for not doing a lot of things. I’m just not sure that that spectre as an excuse is sufficient, really, to not do everything we can to ensure that the restriction on importing goods from the occupied territories will not be got around,” he said. Boyd-Barrett told the committee that he had been someone who “picked tomatoes and melons and peppers in the desert on Israeli-run settlements way, way back in 1987”. He questioned “what’s to stop” Israel from mixing produce from the occupied territories with food from Israel to evade the ban on the trade of goods. “I mean, to be honest, they’re probably going to get around it anyway, as far as I’m concerned, and because people who commit genocide won’t be too worried about rules of origin or spectres of legal action,” he said. Committee member Ó Fearghaíl said he agreed that “we can take it for granted” that Israel “will do everything they can to circumvent this piece of legislation”, but he was not in favour of any measure that would expose the Bill to legal challenge.