Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2025: Report and Final Stages Dail Éireann — 2026-05-20 ============================================================ Mark Ward (SF), Dublin Mid-West I accept that amendment Nos. 7 and 8 are connected to the amendments I spoke about previously but I will speak on amendment No. 8 and possibly come back in on amendment No. 7. We have to remind ourselves of what we are dealing with and why we cannot allow citizens of our State to serve in the IDF or any other armed force engaged in war crimes. In addition to the destruction of Gaza and the killing of tens of thousands through indiscriminate bombing, members of the IDF have engaged in the shooting of pregnant women and the burning alive of children as they slept in tents. The IDF has blocked aid, food and medicine from getting to a starving population. Its members have raped and sexually assaulted Palestinians, including teens, who have died as a result. This is not disputed. This is documented and justified in Israel. The IDF has targeted healthcare staff, attacked hospitals and ordered healthcare staff to leave patients, including newborn babies, to die in incubators. It has targeted journalists. Nearly 200 journalists have been killed according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Israel will not let international news teams into Gaza. We have to send a message that Ireland will not tolerate this. Evil triumphs when good men do nothing. We simply cannot do nothing. We cannot be bystanders to genocide and we cannot allow citizens of this State to facilitate genocide. Does the Minister know what we will be doing very soon because good men have done nothing? We will be welcoming former members of the IDF to play a game of football against the Irish team. This is absurd. Can the Minister guarantee that those players who take to the pitch have not taken part in or supported the genocide of the Palestinian people? Can he guarantee that those who travel to Ireland to support Israel have not taken part or supported the genocide of the Palestinian people? I said to the Minister earlier that if he accepts that Israel has committed genocide, he must accept that the IDF is the instrument Israel is using to commit that genocide. If this is the case, I do not see how the Minister cannot accept our amendments. --- 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/dail/2026-05-20/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:47+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-20