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.
A deal was made to sell a British development site owned by Michael Lowry the same month the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) questioned the independent TD at a garda station last year.
Lobbyists for international arms manufacturers organised a secret meeting with Department of Defence officials at a Dún Laoghaire hotel – and instructed attendees to maintain secrecy about it.
A “Michael Lowrey” – with an E – took ownership of a new home before selling to independent TD Michael Lowry’s daughter for €50,000. Lowry’s refrigeration company later bought the house from his daughter for €290,000 and remains the property's current owner.
In March 1972 state forces in the north of Ireland arrested and interned a young man in Long Kesh. There, alongside dozens of other prisoners – mostly Catholics and Irish republicans – he endured imprisonment without trial.