Employers' group Ibec has warned that it would be "incredibly difficult" for businesses to implement a ban on services coming from the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Ibec Executive Director of Lobbying and Influence Fergal O'Brien told the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade that such services were "incredibly hard" to identify.
Asked if he could quantify the value of services in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Mr O'Brien said he did not have such data.
He said each business would have to conduct a customer by customer analysis to establish the facts, and this would be "extremely difficult".
Mr O'Brien said, unlike goods which are labelled, services are part of an integrated complicated trading system and so the likely impact would be that activities would be served by another jurisdiction.
He said even if only goods were banned by the proposed legislation, his members would be concerned at the likely international reputational damage which would flow from adopting such a bill.
Mr O'Brien indicated that US companies based in Ireland are deeply concerned with anti-boycott legislation in many US states, which were introduced to protect Israel, and the damage this could pose on them.
He said Ibec feedback suggested that Ireland's US trading partners view the country as having taken "an isolationist approach" in considering such legislation, and was possibly acting "outside of EU" - even though we're "interlinked with the US more than any EU country".
Mr O'Brien said Irish companies are being asked a lot of questions about what Ireland is doing and the sense is that the approach is being viewed as "anti-Israel".
He said it appeared that Ireland conducted "minuscule" trade with the Occupied Territories and therefore the financial impact of a ban on goods would be "minimal".
However, he said there could be complications due to Ireland's all-island economy, as well as goods from the Occupied Territories entering the EU.
When asked if any Ibec members had expressed support for the Occupied Territories Bill, Mr O’Brien said the feedback so far has predominantly been about identifying potential concerns and costs of the bill.
"We recognise that this is a sensitive issue for Government, for the Oireachtas and we know that there are other factors to take into account," he said.
"Our view is that proceeding with the bill will not be a cost-less event, and it is important that Government, in its preparation of the legislation, can identify that and quantify those costs as comprehensively as possible," he added.
Additional reporting Eithne Dodd
