Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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139. To ask the Minister for Finance further to Parliamentary Question No. 164 of 28 May 2024, what legal advice he has received concluding that he cannot exercise the prerogatives outlined in Section 42 of the Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Act 2005; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27190/24]

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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140. To ask the Minister for Finance further to Parliamentary Question No. 164 of 28 May 2024, the conditions under which he can exercise the prerogatives outlined in Section 42 of the Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Act 2005; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27191/24]

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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141. To ask the Minister for Finance further to Parliamentary Question No. 164 of 28 May 2024, if he will outline, noting that the Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Act 2005 covers activity other than direct physical violence; and noting that the Act covers financing of terrorist and terrorist-linked activity, the engagements he has had with his EU counterparts regarding the imposition of restrictive measures against those engaging in activity in the West Bank that could be deemed to constitute terrorism under the Act on the grounds that it is “seriously destabilising or destroying the fundamental political, constitutional, economic or social structures of a state or an international organisation”; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27192/24]

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 139, 140 and 141 together.

The Deputy may wish to note that Section 42 of the Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Act 2005 enables the Minister of Finance to make Regulations for enabling provisions of Acts to which Section 42 applies to have full effect. This Section of the 2005 Act applies to Acts that are adopted by the EU, and which, in the opinion of the Minister for Finance, are “for the purpose of, or will contribute to, combating terrorism through the adoption of specific restrictive measures, directed at persons, groups or entities, for the identification, detection, freezing or seizure of their assets of any kind”.

As Minister for Finance, I frequently utilise the powers under Section 42 to give effect to penalties for breaches of EU restrictive measures in relation to two specific EU restrictive measures regimes. These are: the ISIL / Al-Qaida regime under Council Regulation (EC) 881/2002; and the Combating Terrorism regime under Council Regulation (EC) 2580/2001. To date in 2024, I have implemented four Statutory Instruments utilising the powers provided under Section 42 of the Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Act to activate the penalties for new EU restrictive measures introduced under the regimes listed above.

More broadly speaking, restrictive measures, or sanctions as they are generally referred, are a tool of the EU's Common Foreign Policy. Ireland does not impose sanctions regimes unilaterally. Ireland implements EU sanctions and it also implements UN sanctions via EU sanctions.

EU sanctions have direct effect in all Member States of the EU, and they are legally binding on all natural and legal persons in Ireland. As such, a natural or legal person who contravenes a provision of an EU sanctions regulation would be guilty of an offence and liable to prosecution.

In view of the levels of violence being perpetrated by certain Israeli settlers against Palestinian communities in the West Bank, in particular since 7 October 2023, Ireland continues to work to agree further sanctions against violent settlers, as well as Hamas members who were part of the horrific attacks in Israel on 7 October.

In accordance with international law, Ireland distinguishes between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967. It ensures that any bilateral agreements with Israel do not apply to the occupied territories. A whole-of-Government approach is applied to this policy of differentiation.

The Government has made clear that all Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, are illegal under international law. Continuing, and indeed increasing, Israeli settlement activities dangerously imperils the viability of the two-State solution based on the 1967 lines. I therefore take this opportunity to reiterate Ireland’s consistent call to Israel to immediately cease all settlement activity across the occupied Palestinian territory.