Green Party Galway West byelection candidate Niall Murphy owns shares in a US company that operates in illegal Israeli settlements and has provided technology to the Israel Defense Forces.
“What I have is a microcosm of the national indebtedness, if you like, to foreign direct investment. We’re kinda held hostage a bit to all these multinationals because we’ve got this huge tax take from them – so nationally we are compromised by all these companies,” he told The Ditch.
A Galway city councillor from 2020 to 2024, Murphy declared shares in Cisco valued at more than €12,697.38, the threshold for when they must be declared. He wouldn’t confirm their value to The Ditch.
‘I wouldn’t call myself responsible for every decision made by the company’
Niall Murphy bought the shares at a discounted rate as an employee of Cisco where he has worked for 16 years.
In 2018 its Israeli subsidiary Cisco Systems Israel Ltd partnered with the Israeli government to develop tech hubs in five illegal settlements in the West Bank and two illegal settlements in the Golan Heights. It continues providing services in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in violation of international law, according to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
In 2023 Cisco launched the Israel Rises platform to assist Israeli military operations in Gaza. It has engaged in millions of euros worth of contracts with the state of Israel and in 2017 partnered with the Israeli municipality of Jerusalem, developing technology used to surveil Palestinians.
BDS says Cisco’s “complicity in Israel’s aparthied and genocide is well documented through its illegal operations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, discriminatory policies, partnership with the Israeli military, and acquisitions of Israeli companies complicit in human rights violations”.
Murphy confirmed to The Ditch he still owns shares in the company – but wouldn't say how much they're worth.
“I wouldn’t call myself responsible for every decision made by the company and I have tried to make representations on the issue,” he said, adding he previously signed an internal petition circulated within Cisco calling for it to stop working with the Israeli military.
Asked if he would consider selling the shares if elected to the Dáil, Murphy said he hadn’t thought about it very much but that he might. “If I sell them tomorrow, but if you put in the paper that Niall Murphy is invested in war, then I lose out on every count,” he said.
Murphy also stated he supports the Occupied Territories Bill despite it potentially not being in his financial interest should Cisco be impacted by it.
Last month he protested alongside the Palestine Solidarity Campaign outside Allianz’s Dublin office over the company’s relationship to Israel. “Allianz represents big business funding the Gaza genocide,” he wrote in a post on Mastadon. “The GAA can find a better sponsor.”
