A lobbying group dedicated to “standing up for Israel” wrote to government last year requesting the Irish state adopt a controversial definition of antisemitism – and the Department of Justice assured the lobbyists that Ireland’s hate speech legislation would address some of their concerns.
Micheál Martin has repeatedly misrepresented the status of legislation that would ban trade with Israeli settlements deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Late last October attorney general Rossa Fanning wrote to Simon Harris, Micheál Martin and Roderic O'Gorman. In his letter Fanning gave the government ministers advice on the Occupied Territories Bill – legislation that has been blocked by successive governments for the last seven years.
The former chief legal counsel for Guantanamo Bay’s detention camps leads the US agency the Irish Department of Defence has hired to advise Ireland on expanding the state’s military.
Legal counsel appointed by the attorney general approved an opposition bill banning the state investing in companies operating in illegal Israeli settlements – but government has blocked the legislation since 2023.
The attorney general told government that replacing the Occupied Territories Bill rather than amending it would be a "political choice" and not a legally necessary one.
Two flights carrying parts for the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) F-35 fighter jet flew through Irish territory on their way to Israel earlier this month.
A group that lobbies the Irish government on behalf of international arms manufacturers has acquired several new clients.
The Central Bank of Ireland has collected almost €40,000 from the Israeli state since 2021 for facilitating the sale of its bonds – which are marketed as a way to support Israel’s war on Gaza.
Fine Gael health minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill held a meeting with a former Israeli spy at the taoiseach’s offices last May when she was junior defence minister.
In February 2019 political correspondent Hugh O’Connell wrote a piece about a trend that had “raised concerns” of a “brain drain”: Fine Gael hiring half a dozen journalists as special advisers in 18 months – a "brain drain", wrote O'Connell.
Senior Department of Defence officials discussed establishing quarterly meetings with arms industry lobbyists – with internal records showing talks about “effective communications” between both parties ahead of the publication of an EU defence policy paper.