Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)

I have a similar amendment. It is not grouped with these. It is probably slightly different but not very much different. I support these amendments for all the reasons my colleagues have given. It would be more problematic for us as a country if we do not do this. I think the Minister would be asked why not. The public are not really interested in the intricacies of a Bill and an amendment but they are interested in humanitarianism, genocide and the way in which the world sees what is going on. Here we have important legislation where we have an opportunity to say that if an army in any part of the world acts in a genocidal way, that, under our Bill, means they are declared as terrorists. They are terrorists, as I have said numerous times in the Dáil.

For the general public looking in on all of us, I accept there is quite a degree of sympathy within the Minister's own party and probably all other members of the coalition relating to this, but sympathy does not achieve anything. What a State decides through its legislative process is what is on the table and says what we believe in. I am not hung up on whether it is the Labour Party's amendment or Sinn Féin's amendment, but I am hung up on doing the right thing. If the Minister is willing to work with us on some other amendment, even if he has some technical reason to oppose these ones but indicates that he is willing to do this in spirit and tables a Report Stage amendment that we would all work on, I am not speaking out of turn but hope that we would all be able to work with the Minister. Thousands of people in the public are watching this committee and I have been inundated with people contacting me about this. If it is a blanket case of saying that we are not doing this, then from a Government and State point of view, the Minister is in a bad position and is not representing the views of the Irish nation.