“The war bonds go, or the Government goes,” IPSC Stop Funding Genocide campaign coordinator Helen Mahony thundered outside the Department of Foreign Affairs, prompting the loudest cheers of the night from the hundreds attending the last of a series of increasingly furious rallies a few days out from renewal D-day, September 2. Just over a week later, Israel Bonds, the EU sales of which had been facilitated by the Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) since Brexit, are gone – to Luxembourg.1At the time of publication of this article, reports suggest that the transfer to Luxembourg is a temporary one, with the Central Bank remaining the ‘the home member state for the overall Israeli bonds issuance programme.’ The IPSC has condemned this sleight-of-hand as ‘duplicitous’. It remains a fact, however, that Israel felt compelled to move its bonds issuance elsewhere, lest it be sanctioned. This remains a real achievement for the Palestine solidarity movement, a potentially important stepping stone to future victories against Western complicity in the genocide. But if the Irish government had any scintilla of integrity, they should have resigned immediately too for once again failing to act in accordance with the wishes of the electorate.
Last Monday’s move is a massive victory for the solidarity movement and for the people of Ireland, who stand resolutely with Palestinians. However, as with the evacuation of the apartheid state’s former ambassador last December, it was, shamefully, a decision taken in Tel Aviv, not Kildare Street. Even though Micheal Martin confirmed on May 28, 2025, during Leaders’ Questions, that the Irish state considers apartheid Israel to be perpetrating a genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza, his government has still done nothing meaningful to fulfil our obligations under the1948 Genocide Convention, the 1949 Geneva Convention, and customary international law.
Israel forced to run
There may be some important caveats to the Luxembourg bonds transfer, including reports of the temporary nature of the transfer, and activists in both countries will continue to study the small print on European banking rules and regulations.
However, the fact that Israel moved first is hugely significant. Israel is becoming a pariah state in the eyes of many. Had a government banned its Central Bank issuing Israeli bonds, this would have been a major sanction, one that might well have been taken up by other countries and escalated further. So Israel reckoned that taking control of the situation, as protests around the Central Bank intensified, would be the best move in-terms of damage limitation.
Also, in choosing Luxembourg – a country whose economy depends even more than Ireland on international financial services and banking, and which has major German and US banks and the European Investment Bank located there – Israel was likely confident that it would receive no objections from Luxemburg’s government. The movement must now find ways of linking up with Palestinian activists in Luxemburg and the EU to not let the issue drop.
People power
That our Central Bank has been largely forced to end its complicity in genocide is a notable win for people power, and a shot in the arm for the Palestine solidarity movement. For almost 12 months, the CBI and the Irish government stonewalled calls for an end to the facilitation of sales of the bonds, which have directly funded the genocide in Gaza, the forced starvation, the murder of more than 62,000 people, forced displacement, bombing and destruction in Gaza. Openly advertised with the tagline, ‘Israel is at war, stand with Israel’, the CBI’s rubber-stamping of sales throughout the EU made it a lynchpin of the apartheid state’s fundraising in Europe.
People all around Ireland have marched and organised in solidarity with our Palestinian sisters and brothers, while also hounding local representatives and government TDs with phone calls, letters, emails and constituency office visits. Opposition politicians, local authorities, trade unions, legal experts, artists, writers, and civil society organisations up and down the country demanded an end to the Central Bank’s shameful complicity in funding the genocide. Central Bank Governor Gabriel Makhlouf said his hands were tied, with the Government concurring, but campaigners insisted that Makhlouf and Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe had levers at their disposal they could have used to banish the bonds, a position ultimately supported by the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance.
On April 30, 2024, the International Court of Justice reaffirmed that the Genocide Convention means signatory states, including Ireland, must “employ all means reasonably available to them to prevent genocide so far as possible” when they are aware of an ongoing genocide, or of a serious risk of genocide. Last year, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, in relation to credible allegations of crimes against humanity and war crimes. Israel’s bonds prospectuses failed to mention important ICJ and ICC determinations, so the Central Bank should never have approved last year’s prospectus, given its obligation to ensure that the information in it is “complete, comprehensible and consistent” prior to ratification.
Through almost 12 months of campaigning, the IPSC Stop Funding Genocide team build a broad church, even including a number of religious organisations. Early-morning information leafleting of Central Bank staff was already under way ahead of the first of dozens of protests on North Wall Quay, on November 15, 2025, at which Richard Boyd Barrett TD and Senator Alice Mary Higgins were among the speakers. Other pro-Palestine activist groups rallied to the cause, swelling numbers at protests as the weeks passed, but the media were very slow to pick up the story. It was only after protesters occupied the lobby of the Central Bank in March that inroads were made there, with Irish Independent reporter Conor Feehan interviewing campaign coordinator Helen on the phone as they looked at each other through the window.
In April, the IPSC announced it had submitted a criminal complaint to An Garda Síochána in relation to the Central Bank’s ongoing facilitation of the sale of the war bonds. Since then, Gary Gannon TD has also initiated a separate High Court case against the Central Bank over the bonds, which comrades in Luxembourg will be examining closely to potentially take a similar action in the domestic courts there. Meanwhile, despite the transfer of the bonds approval to Luxembourg, it is understood that the IPSC intends to pursue its case against Makhlouf for genocide complicity here.
Keeping Up The Pressure
Responding to the subsequent report that the transfer to Luxembourg is in fact temporary, the IPSC has condemned this as:
“a duplicitous move by the Central Bank that to continues to allow Ireland, by stealth, to remain Israel’s European base for fundraising for genocide, apartheid and occupation in Europe. It is nothing more than an off-shoring of complicity in Israel’s genocide – and something the IPSC had warned about earlier this year. […]
“[O]ur huge campaign from the streets to the corridors of power made it impossible for the CBI to continue their direct approval of these bonds.”
“The Joint Oireachtas Committee must summon the CBI Governor to appear immediately to answer to the people for these deceitful actions. The approval of genocide-funding Israel Bonds either directly by the CBI or offshore in Luxembourg, facilitated, enabled and overseen by the CBI, is entirely unacceptable and must be ended immediately. And we reiterate the call from the Joint [Finance] Committee that the Irish government demand legislative change at EU level to end the sale of these bonds throughout Europe.”
In Ireland, pro-Palestine activists continue to call on the government to end many other areas of state complicity with the genocidal Zionist regime. Organisations, groups and individuals up and down the country will now step up demands that we ban the use of Shannon Airport by US military, stop allowing the transit of weapons to Israel through Irish airspace, enact the Occupied Territories Bill and the Arms Embargo Bill, stop exporting dual-use items, and join the Hague Group, at the very least. In recent weeks, the pressure has been mounting on the GAA and the Catholic Church to cut their substantial ties with genocide-complicit insurance giant Allianz, which insures Israel’s biggest weapons-producer Elbit Systems in the UK and invests in the war bonds.
It’s to be hoped that the movement will not have to wait too long for its next victory, because the people of Ireland are losing patience over state complicity. If the Government can be gotten rid of too, then all the better!
Ken Powell is an activist, teacher and communications professional. He helped out as a volunteer on the IPSC Stop Funding Genocide campaign.
