Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2025: Second Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-23
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Catherine Ardagh (FF), Dublin South-Central

I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach for that.
I listened with interest from my office to the comments on this Bill, and I thank all Members who contributed to the debate. It is very encouraging to see the level of support across the House and the goodwill towards the legislation, albeit with some comments from Members of the House.
It is undeniable that the landscape of terror threats in Europe has shifted in recent years, yet terrorism and violent extremism continue to pose a persistent and multifaceted threat. These are complex threats from across the entire ideological spectrum, often driven by geopolitical tensions and frequently accelerated by digital connectivity. Whatever their provenance, acts of terrorism constitute a serious attack on democracy, the rule of law and the enjoyment of human rights. Ireland has put in place strong anti-terrorist legislation to ensure that terrorist activities will not be tolerated here, while at the same time ensuring the safety and protection of fundamental freedoms and rights for all.
The Bill before the House will further discuss this ongoing threat by creating new terrorist offences relating to travel and training for the purposes of terrorism. These provisions are of critical importance in denying international terrorists the means and opportunity to use this jurisdiction for planning and supporting terrorist activities.
International co-operation, particularly with EU partners, is essential in our efforts to combat terrorism. This is especially the case given the cross-border nature of many terrorist threats and the scope of the offences. As previously stated, the Bill will give effect to provisions of the 2017 EU directive on combating terrorism. This is an important step in bringing our domestic counterterrorism laws further into alignment with that of other EU member states and will aid in international co-operation to address the security threat.
I note various comments made by Senators Murphy, Keogan and O'Reilly, who raised serious concerns regarding glorification of terrorism and the definition of provocation as an offence. In Ireland, the right to freely express one's convictions and opinions is protected under the Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights. Those who engage in legitimate reporting on terrorist acts, criticism or other forms of legitimate expression should not, in our modern, liberal democracy, fear they might be captured by the scope of this offence.
The offence of public provocation to commit a terrorist act seeks to target those who glorify and justify terrorism, or who disseminate messages or images online and offline, including those related to the victims of terrorism, as a way to gather support for terrorist causes or seriously intimidate the population, particularly where such dissemination causes a reasonable prospect that terrorist acts may be committed. That is why the new expanded definition of the offence of public provocation to commit a terrorist offence contains several ingredients that must first be present in order for a person to be guilty of glorification of a terrorist activity under the provisions of section 3 of the Bill. It must be shown that he or she possessed the requisite intention of inciting persons to commit a terrorist activity when he or she distributed, published or had caused to be distributed or published a message. The message itself must have glorified, including by praise or celebration, a terrorist activity. The publication of the message must give rise to a reasonable apprehension that someone might, as a result of such a publication, commit a terrorist act, which is obviously an objective test. The use of a reasonableness test is an objective-level standard used in law to prevent against arbitrary or irrational interpretation, assessing circumstances against a hypothetical reasonable person's response or actions.
These ingredients sound complex, but they are not; they are standard phrases in law. These ingredients serve to act as safeguards, ensuring that it is only those who set out to deliberately incite terrorist activity, where it is reasonable to assume a terrorist activity, as defined in the Bill, would result, are captured by this offence.
The high standard of proof contained within the reframed definition ensures a person's fundamental rights, such as freedom of expression and association, are protected and situations do not arise whereby otherwise lawful activities are considered as falling within the scope of this offence.
Senators Murphy and Keogan raised concerns around the Kneecap clause. As the definition of "public provocation" has been expanded in the Bill, there might be a possibility it could be open to abuse and misuse by curtailing free speech and lead to prosecutions similar to those in the UK in relation to the band Kneecap, which came to all our attention. The Bill does not contain provisions in any way reflective of the charges faced by a member of Kneecap. There is a marked difference between the two statutory provisions in question, namely, what we propose in section 3 of the Bill to reformulate the definition of a public provocation offence and what exists under section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000 in England and Wales. Under the legislation in England and Wales, there is no requirement for a person's acts or behaviour to carry with them the intention of causing committal of a terrorist offence. It is much broader, simply requiring that in a public place a person wears or displays an article that would arouse suspicion that the person is a supporter of a proscribed organisation. Contrast that with section 3 of this Bill, which carries a much higher burden of proof to bring about a successful prosecution for public provocation to commit a terrorist offence by glorification. It must be shown the person possessed the intention of inciting persons to commit a terrorist activity when he or she distributed, published or caused to be distributed or published a message inciting or glorifying, including by praise or celebration, a terrorist activity. It is also a requirement of the offence that such distribution or publication gave rise to the reasonable apprehension that the commission of a terrorist activity could thereby result. These additional elements act as safeguards in ensuring it only applies to those who deliberately incite terrorist activity and only where it is reasonable to believe a terrorist activity would result. That is what is captured by this offence.
Senator Murphy noted Sinn Féin amendments in the Dáil. The Minister rejected proposals from the Opposition in the Dáil to codify as terrorist offences certain acts of state forces engaged in war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. The acts were travelling, organising travel, recruitment and training for the purposes of serving with such forces. It is understood the intention behind the amendments was to ensure those who participate in or facilitate acts that contribute to breaches of international law, including war crimes, crimes against humanity and acts of genocide at the behest of a state via its armed forces can be convicted of terrorist offences. The 2005 Act, which this Bill updates, excludes the activities of armed forces during an armed conflict and in the exercise of their official duties from being categorised as terrorist offences insofar as those acts are governed by humanitarian or other rules of international law. This was a requirement of the original EU measure underpinning the legislation, a 2002 EU Council framework decision on combating terrorism. That requirement remains in the 2017 directive that will underpin the primary Act on foot of the Bill. The aim of the Bill is to give full effect to the 2017 EU directive on combating terrorism. Therefore, these proposed offences will fall outside the scope of the Bill.
Terrorists are increasingly leveraging, as we have discussed at length in this House, new technologies to intimidate, radicalise, recruit and carry out terrorist attacks. The Bill will address part of this dangerous trend. It clarifies that the dissemination of messages that glorify terrorist acts, done in such a way as to provoke further terrorist acts, is an offence. It also allows for the categorisation of cyber offences already on our Statute Book as terrorist offences. The latter is a necessary step for the protection of our critical infrastructure from terrorist cyberattack. Both of these measures are complementary to existing provisions aimed at tackling the digital dimension of terrorism, including the power of An Garda Síochána to order online platforms to remove terrorist content.
This legislation, in tandem with other measures, will help to ensure we are sufficiently prepared to meet the ever-evolving challenge of modern terrorism. I thank Senators from across the House for their contributions and support on the introduction of this Bill to the House. I look forward to their support as the Bill is further considered on Committee Stage.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-06-23/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:05+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-23