Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2025: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-30 ============================================================ Alice-Mary Higgins (IND), National University of Ireland There has been a quite a strong misrepresentation of my position, which I was actually quite clear on when I spoke. I would like that to be clarified. I did not suggest that people should be free to do whatever they want for these reasons. I was very clear that these are criminal offences, they should be prosecuted as criminal offences and persons who engage in them do so in the knowledge that they are committing a criminal offence that comes with the penalties that apply. I said that on about four occasions in my contribution. It is not the case that this is a get-out card where everything goes. The question is whether this activity should be interpreted as terrorism. For example, people who have sought to disable a weapon or missile are committing criminal damage and they may be prosecuted for the offence of criminal damage, but the question is whether that should be interpreted as terrorism, which comes with a far greater set of penalties and where the person loses a number of the other protections. We are looking at situations that might ordinarily attract a penalty of one or two years suddenly attracting a penalty of up to ten years. It is about the attribution of terrorist intent, not the Schedule setting out the offences. I am a little concerned about new offences and I would like clarity around the process. I note the offences in terms of data. It is not clear to me exactly what is meant by the data and information systems offence. I signal that I may come back on Report Stage to the question of how offences are added to the Schedule. It is not around the offences and the Schedule, and I should also signal that the question of the threat to commit is one issue that may require further clarification. The two issues here are the Schedule of offences and then whether they are just offences that can be prosecuted as offences or terrorist offences. That is where the test of the three intentions is applied. Is it the case that we have to say there is an intention to intimidate a population, an intention to force a government to take an action or not take an action, and an intention to destabilise the economic and social structures? Those are the intentions that are leading to these things being interpreted as terroristic. It is not true and, in fact, it is somewhat disingenuous to say I am saying people should be able to do whatever they want because they have a cause. That is not the case. It is a matter of whether certain causes should be defined as terrorist causes simply because the person wishes to force a state, or they have the intention of trying to compel a state, to take an action or not take an action. I am worried about how that might get interpreted. Criminal damage can involve very serious things, and that is why it should be prosecuted. It can go all the way from graffiti through to arson. That is why I have not, at any point, argued against the prosecution of the offence of criminal damage. I am arguing against certain things, such as the spraying of graffiti or expressing a desire or demand for a government to take an action, being interpreted potentially as a terrorist intent. That is the issue. It is the intent. I was trying to amend that, which is why I was trying to clarify how it would be interpreted. The Minister came back and said that even if it is an oppressive regime, people still should not be allowed to do terrorist things. If it is an oppressive regime and you are a woman in Afghanistan or somebody supporting the women of Afghanistan, or if it is Iran and someone is graffitiing "Women, Life, Freedom" on a wall, or if you are committing criminal damage against an occupying power, do we believe that is terrorism? We might believe and agree that it is criminal damage but do we believe it is terrorism? Maybe not every form of opposition to a state or every attempt to compel it, even through direct action, should be interpreted as terrorism. That is my concern and it is what the Bill sets up to potentially happen in the case of direct action protests. Will the Minister clarify if he believes that forms of direct action protest that make demands of a state should be labelled as terrorism or should they instead be treated as grounds for criminal prosecution? --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. 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