Ireland will likely scrap planned sanctions on Israel in the wake of pressure from business groups concerned about repercussions for investment in the island country, four individuals with knowledge on the subject said, Reuters reported on Saturday.
The Irish parliament has advanced a bill that would ban the import of products made in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, defining their sale as a criminal offense.
However, Ireland hosts some of the largest U.S. corporations, which employ around 11% of Irish workers and pay almost a third of Irish tax receipts through their corporate taxes.
This makes Dublin highly susceptible to U.S. pressure.
U.S. lawmakers have already said that sanctions against the Jewish state will lead to a reprisal from Washington.
In August, a group of 16 members of the U.S. House of Representatives asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to add Ireland to a list of countries boycotting Israel, a move that would impose penalties on U.S. individuals and companies in the European nation, The Irish Times reported.
Reuters cited the unnamed sources as saying that business representatives in Ireland urged the government to delay or soften the sanctions bill to avoid the pulling of investments by U.S. corporations and investors.
The bill’s current text would limit the boycott to tangible goods, consisting of a handful of products such as fruit worth just $234,660 a year, according to Reuters.
Had the legislation included services, it could affect multinational software companies, the report added.
A final decision has not been made, the report continued, but the government would likely follow the advice of those warning against a broader law.
In July, Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan sent a letter to a series of senior officials in the Trump administration and Congress, in which he expressed outrage over Ireland’s Israeli Settlements (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Bill 2025, which would be the first against Jews because of their religion and place of residence since the Holocaust.
“If Ireland passes an official law that boycotts Jews only, it will crown itself as an antisemitic country. This will be the first time since the Holocaust that a specific law against Jews will pass in a European country. A country that becomes antisemitic, contrary to U.S. policy, free world countries cannot overlook this. I call on the United States to impose economic tariffs on any country that supports such antisemitic boycott laws,” Dagan wrote.
