The Department of Defence recruited a British Army colonel – who served in the occupation of the north of Ireland and invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan – to advise a state body tasked with reforming the Irish Defence Forces.

External pressure, “system failures” and “human factors” contributed to the death of a 10-year-old Temple Street patient who underwent repeat surgeries at the hospital – according to a “private and confidential” Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) internal report.

“Starting with Gaza and moving on…” said the head of a state-owned Israeli weapons company at a recent Tel Aviv military technology conference.

In the final week of Maria Steen’s failed effort to receive a nomination to the Irish presidency, emails with the same message appeared in the inboxes of ten TDs, all of them independents or supporters of the government.

With lawyers for an on-remand Irish activist demanding prosecutors investigate a German company’s possible involvement in Israeli war crimes, The Ditch can reveal the firm is shipping  “target acquisition” systems to Israel.