Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Deputy Kelly for putting down this amendment. It is not dissimilar to the previous group but what Deputy Kelly seeks to do is to state one cannot be excluded from this legislation simply on account of membership of the military, armed force or police force of a state.

If a member of the IDF who committed a war crime or crime against humanity in Gaza came to Ireland, he or she could be prosecuted in Ireland for the commission of that war crime or crime against humanity. At present the domestic laws we have in Ireland enable us to prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in other jurisdictions whether they are committed by a state entity or not.

Amendment No. 8 seeks to amend the definition section by seeking to ensure that state authorities, like a military or armed force or police force, are not excluded from the definition of a terrorist group and to ensure that persons cannot rely on the fact that any terrorist act they committed were at the behest of a state authority in order to escape prosecution. The Bill inserts into the principal Act the definition of terrorist group from the 2017 EU directive. I read that out earlier and I want to read it out again because it does not limit the definition of a terrorist group in this legislation to groups which are not state actors. It says "'terrorist group' means a structured group of more than two persons, established for a period of time and acting in concert to commit terrorist offences”. A military or armed or police force of the state or any other state appears not to be excluded from that definition. As previously noted, the principal Act 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 activities are governed by humanitarian or other rules of international law. Where the activities fall outside the scope of humanitarian or other rules of international law, they could fall to be prosecuted under the Act subject to meeting the necessary requirements of the offence. If people, state forces or police forces are committing acts which are outside the scope of international law, they could be covered by this legislation.

I have already discussed why provisions not reflective of the 2017 directive are outside the scope of this Bill. For those reasons, I do not support these amendments, I regret to say.