The Social Democrats have made a big issue of their support for Palestinians in Gaza and trenchantly criticised the Government over its response to the war in Gaza and the failure to pass the Occupied Territories Bill.
They have also called for tougher sanctions on companies profiting from the war in Gaza. So the revelations about the timing of new TD Eoin Hayes’s divestment of his shares in a US software company that supplies technology to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has proved a major embarrassment.
The Dublin Bay South TD worked for Palantir between 2015 and 2017 and, as part of his salary, received shares in the big data company cofounded by billionaire Peter Thiel. The firm has been in the headlines in recent months, including over a controversial NHS contract and a “strategic partnership for battle tech” with Israel.
The firm provides intelligence and surveillance services and AI capabilities, including helping to identify targets for bombing.
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Hayes was suspended on Tuesday afternoon, hours after a heated press conference in which he told media he sold the shares in Palantir before he entered politics but declined to say when exactly he sold them and how much for, despite repeated questioning.
He in fact sold the shares a month after he was elected a councillor last June for Kimmage-Rathmines on Dublin City Council.
He sold the 7,000 shares for a pretax figure of €199,000 in July this year. Palantir shares were worth between $17 and $45 in 2021, $16.95 in January this year when Mr Hayes said he should have sold them and were valued at $28.07 by July. The shares were worth $74.36 on Tuesday. Had he sold the 7,000 shares yesterday, he could have made a pretax figure of over €490,000.
Mr Hayes said in his statement that he worked “in internal operations, in areas like HR and IT, when I lived in the United States”.
“I had absolutely no role in anything related to any military contracts, for the Israeli military or anyone else,” he said.
He said that “as part of my salary package, I was provided with shares. The conditions attaching to those shares meant I was unable to sell them until 2021, six months after the company had gone public.
“Throughout the course of the past year, Palantir’s support for the Israeli military has markedly increased. In January, the company signed a new strategic partnership with the Israeli Defence Ministry. I should have sold my shares then and I deeply regret that I did not.”
At the press conference Mr Hayes was asked about concerns raised by the company’s employees a decade ago and that large asset managers were selling shares in the third quarter of last year.
“There are tens of thousands of people in this country that work for multinationals that don’t agree necessarily with their bosses all the time,” he replied.
Mr Hayes denied that it was politically hypocritical for him to call for the State to divest its interest in Israel when at the same time he was still making money from the company. He said he had divested but the State had not.
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