I support the Sinn Féin amendment and I have concerns about the Government amendment. I have concerns about the whole Bill, to be honest. I will start on the Sinn Féin stuff, to which the Minister responded by saying this is about real terrorism, it is about brown people or republicans. That is the type of terrorism he is dealing with here, not any of that fine state terrorism we see carried out by the US and Israel. Today, we have video of an Irish citizen being terrorised by Itamar Ben-Gvir, the security minister in Israel. It shows an Irish citizen, a peaceful activist trying to bring humanitarian aid and break the illegal blockade of Gaza, being physically mistreated while Itamar Ben-Gvir gloats about it. However, we are expected to accept that we are not dealing with any of that kind of terrorism here, and we will deal with it somewhere else. Why are there double standards? Why must we accept that the genocide of the Palestinian people and the complete mistreatment of anyone who attempts to stand up for the Palestinian people do not count as terrorism and we do not want to cover that here? My second point relates to Government amendment No. 7, which seeks the redrafting of the definition of "terrorist activity" to include "an offence specified in Part 1 of Schedule 2 committed with the intention of ... [among other things] unduly compelling a government or an international organisation to perform or abstain from performing an act". The offences specified include a lot of serious stuff that people would recognise as terrorism but also include criminal damage and endangering traffic. Could the fuel protests have been defined as terrorist activity? They were potentially endangering traffic under the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997. The definition of endangering traffic states "intentionally places or throws any dangerous obstruction upon a railway, road, street, waterway or public place". Would placing a tractor on O'Connell Street or in front of a refinery be counted as endangering traffic? I suspect it would. If we combine endangering traffic, as so defined in the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act, with "unduly compelling a government or an international organisation to perform or abstain from performing an act", when obviously these protests were designed to call for a cap on fuel prices among other things, can these people be defined as terrorists? Regarding criminal damage, attempting to get into Shannon Airport and break the US war machine, which is being used to encourage and collaborate with the genocide, is criminal damage, yes, but it is absolutely morally correct to do so. Does that become a terrorist act? That is the problem with this whole Bill in reality. I know the Government has amendment No. 16, which states the engagement by a person via protest, advocacy or dissent, or strike, lockout or industrial action, shall not, in and of itself, constitute grounds for saying that it is terrorism, but it also leaves open the possibility that a protest can be defined as terrorism. As for non-violent civil disobedience, which includes "endangering traffic" or "criminal damage" that has the purpose of "compelling a government or an international organisation to perform or abstain from performing an act", I have been on plenty of protests in my life and all of them have had the purpose of compelling a government or international organisation to do or not do something. That is the whole purpose of a protest. Whether it is unduly compelling, I do not know, but it is certainly trying to compel them to do something. It is very dangerous that people could be defined as terrorists in this way. I am interested in the Minister's response. I assume he will say the fuel protestors would not be defined as terrorists under this legislation. I am interested in how he will say they are not because, on my reading, it seems they can be. That is what is so worrying about this proposal.

Sentiment score: -0.32