Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2025: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-30
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Alice-Mary Higgins (IND), National University of Ireland

The problem, which the Minister has still not answered, is with where the interpretations overlap. It is one thing to outline how the legislation is envisaged to be used, but the point is that the text continues to describe how it relates to incitement. The question as to actions that are offences will come up again. This is a direct question because I am genuinely not clear on this. I am absolutely open in this regard. As I read it, the legislation relates to not just actions in this State, but those in other states as well. For example, it relates to actions in other states that would, were they to take place in this State, be considered an offence. However, that is focusing solely on the action. Criminal damage is one such example. If an action has taken place in an occupied territory against a state, which may be an occupying state, can we have absolute clarity that such actions would not be considered terrorist actions? I seek a direct answer in that regard. Even though the language in our laws and the act that took place in the other state align, the interpretation may differ.
We are talking about a list of actions that become terrorist almost by definition of intent under our law. In other countries, such actions may become terrorist because they are taken in support of a proscribed organisation. In some states, those proscribed organisations may include environmental activism and activism in respect of the Genocide Convention and protection of same.
In some countries, they may include activists in favour of gender equality. Whose definition of terrorist activity applies? The Bill refers to where the two acts are comparable, implying that if the act took place in Ireland, it would be an offence in another member state. If, for example, Germany decided to proscribe a number of Palestinian support organisations as terrorist organisations, what would occur? If Germany has a similar law on its books, because it would be derived from the same directive, does Ireland have to treat as an offence an act that would be an offence if it were carried out in Germany, even though those to whom the law would apply would be different in different places? That is a general question. Very specifically, what is the position where an occupied territory is involved? I want to know how these things link up. Positive intent is one thing, but I am wondering how this pans out. These are not very loose hypotheticals; they relate to the overinterpretation of these kinds of laws that we have seen in the UK, the US and also now, to a degree, in Germany. Therefore, it is extremely relevant to consider how this will pan out.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-06-30/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:07+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-30