Cement Roadstone Holdings

Cement Roadstone Holdings, now known as CRH plc, an Irish building material group. The company holds 25% of the shares of the Israeli company Mashav Initiating and Development. Mashav is a holding company which is the sole owner of Nesher Israel Cement Enterprises. Nesher, which supplies 85% of all cement in Israel, provided cement for the construction of the separation wall, checkpoints, West Bank settlements and Israeli construction in the occupied territories. Products of Nesher were seen in construction sites in West Bank settlements and in the construction of the light rail project in Jerusalem, which connects the illegal settlement neighborhoods of the city with the city center.

In 2003 Amnesty International reported that “C.R.H [sic], through its subsidiaries Mashav and Nesher, is likely to be providing the raw material of the fence/wall. If so, it would contravene the U.N. norms on the responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and other Business Enterprises with regard to Human Rights.” Following calls from Amnesty to clarify the company's involvement in the construction of the separation wall, the company admitted in 2004 that "in all probability" Nesher cement is being used in the construction of the wall.

In 2005 the Church of Ireland announced that it would review its €5m investments in Cement Roadstone Holdings because of its alleged involvement in the construction of the Israeli security wall in the West Bank. That same year the United Methodist Church (U.S.)called for the divestment from companies that are significantly supporting the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.  Two years later, at its New England Annual Conference, the body specifically urged its members, churches and investment managers to divest from CRH.

CRH subsidiary Mashav announced in the summer of 2009 that it will acquire Hanson Israel, a subsidiary of Germany's Heidelberg Cement. With the acquisition of Hanson Israel, the second-largest building materials company in Israel, CRH is further entrenched in violations of international law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Heidelberg Cement became the target of legal action in Israel because its then subsidiary, Hanson Israel, was involved in illegal mining activities in the occupied West Bank. In March 2009 the Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din filed a petition with the Israeli high court demanding a halt to illegal mining activity in West Bank quarries, including Hanson Israel's Nahal Raba quarry. The court decided to freeze the expansion of quarries for six months. Hanson Israel also owns two concrete plants in the settlements of Modiin Illit and Atarot, and an asphalt plant south of the Elqana settlement, all illegally built on occupied Palestinian land.

The pressure on CRH to divest from Mashav has increased over the past few years. In 2005, activists in Ireland called on Irish pension funds to divest from CRH until the company provides an absolute guarantee to cease involvement in the supply of materials used in illegal Israeli construction projects in the West Bank. The same year, the biennial Irish Congress of Trade Unions conference passed a resolution that called for boycott and divestment from Israel and companies such as CRH that are building Israel's wall in the occupied West Bank. Recently, the Irish Free Palestine Campaign, the Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Irish Anti-War Movement and the political party Sinn Fein demanded the company end all of its activities that facilitate the Israeli occupation.