Politics watch: Bill to ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements
Government to draft Bill to ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements
The
Government is to draft legislation
to ban the trade of goods with Palestinian lands illegally occupied by Israeli settlements.
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Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Harris received Cabinet approval to draft the law on Tuesday.
The Government has opted for fresh legislation instead of progressing the Occupied Territories Bill, first tabled in 2018.
The Government has said there is 'a narrow pathway', based on an advisory opinion from the UN's top court, to ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements.
Bill aimed at banning fox hunting
A bill that would
ban 'cruel' fox hunting
in Ireland has been introduced to the Dáil.
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The bill was immediately opposed by two rural independent TDs, who said foxes pose concerns for farmers.
Solidarity TD Ruth Coppinger, who introduced the bill, said it was 'unprecedented' for a bill to be opposed at the first stage.
Government apology over hit-and-run crash
The
Justice Minister
has announced a review of bail laws after apologising to the family of a Monaghan cyclist who was killed in a hit-and-run crash almost 14 years ago.
On August 2nd, 2011, 23-year-old law graduate Shane O'Farrell was cycling home when he was struck by a car in the Carrickmacross area of Co Monaghan.
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The driver of the car, Zigimantas Gradzuiska, failed to remain at the scene.
The Lithuanian national had a number of previous convictions including for theft and drugs offences.
The Dáil heard that the day he struck Mr O'Farrell, Gradzuiska should have been in jail for breaches of bail conditions that were applied to him at the time.
In one instance, the late Judge John O'Hagan had told him that he would be 'going to prison' if he got in trouble again after January 11th, 2011.
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Public express outrage over McGregor/Trump meeting
Members of the public expressed their anger at Conor McGregor's St Patrick's Day meeting with US president Donald Trump in messages to Taoiseach Micheál Martin.
The vast majority of messages were critical of McGregor, with many accusing the UFC fighter of "hijacking our identity".
Mr Martin met the US president on March 12th, and the Government was blindsided by McGregor's St Patrick's Day trip to the White House, in which he made a number of unfounded claims about immigration into Ireland.
Claims McGregor made about crime levels in Dublin were also found to be from a discredited 'study' published by an online gambling company.
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In messages to the Taoiseach, seen by
BreakingNews.ie
after a Freedom of Information request, people expressed anger at McGregor's White House appearance.
At 10.15pm on March 17th, one email to Mr Martin read: "You did a great job on your recent visit to the White House, congratulations on your diplomacy, but I'm furious with that clown (and I'm being generous) McGregor hijacking our identity."
Abroad
A 50 per cent tariff on EU imports to the US has been delayed from June 1st until July 9th following a call with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, Donald Trump said.
Speaking to reporters in New Jersey late on Sunday, the US president said the delay was to allow time for 'serious negotiations' with the bloc.
In the UK, Nigel Farage's Reform UK continues to rise in opinion polls, with prime minister Keir Starmer and Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch struggling for a response.
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Times
7 hours ago
- Times
US values must not trump valid concerns about social media
In December 2020, Helen McEntee, then the justice minister, announced her intention to bring forward new legislation to combat incitement to hatred and hate crime the following year. She made this promise at the launch of the findings of a public consultation that attracted more than 3,600 submissions. She stated that, after in-depth meetings with various civil society and community groups, academics and experts, her aim was to identify how Ireland's law in this area could be improved, based on a clear understanding of the experiences of those affected by hate speech and hate crime. McEntee ultimately proposed that the new law would cover both incitement to hatred and hate crime with the latter offences being aggravated versions of existing crimes. The idea was that offences against the person, criminal damage or public order offences — when they were carried out because of prejudice against a protected characteristic — would be criminalised. Close to four years after first mooting the legislation, and with a general election looming, McEntee dropped her plan, claiming the incitement to hatred element of the criminal justice bill did not have a consensus. It would be dealt with, in that classic Irish tradition, at a later time. The hate speech element had caused unease within her Fine Gael party and coalition partner Fianna Fail, and was criticised by various backbenchers, opposition parties and independents, free speech groups and even the world's richest man, Elon Musk. • Ireland's 'vague' anti-hate law threatens flood of court challenges Six weeks later, Donald Trump won the United States presidential election — and on free speech, like much else, the world turned. As Patrick O'Donoghue reveals in today's paper, the US State Department has recently warned Irish regulators against pressuring American tech companies to limit, or what it more evocatively calls chill, free speech following a meeting with the Irish media commissioner, Coimisiun na Mean, and officials from the Department of Justice. Ireland is an important battleground in the global culture war that is free speech because of the American social media giants headquartered in Dublin. All have proven hostile to any attempts to hold them liable for what is posted on their platforms, no matter how heinous or potentially libellous the context. All have also been brought to heel by the Trump administration. Their chief executives were only too happy to line up like lapdogs to have their picture taken with Trump at his inauguration, having stumped up large amounts of coin to contribute to the costs of the festivities. • Who's who in Trump's tech bro club Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, Tim Cook of Apple, Sundar Pichai of Google and Elon Musk of X (and much else besides) were centre stage while TikTok's Shou Zi Chew also put in an appearance. Earlier that month, Zuckerberg announced that Meta was to get rid of fact checkers and dramatically reduce the amount of what he called 'censorship' on its platforms. Facebook kicked Trump off its platform in the aftermath of the Capitol riots on January 6, 2021, which led Trump to call Facebook 'an enemy of the people'. Once the American people re-elected Trump, however, Zuckerberg was only too keen to ingratiate himself back into the president's capricious good books. Musk donated some $300 million to Trump's election campaign and, notwithstanding the pair's rather hilarious X spat last week, must be delighted at how the administration so clearly aligns with his views on hate speech, ie there is literally nothing that cannot be said on his platform. The US secretary of state, the sycophantic Marco Rubio — a man with no principle he won't change — recently announced a view to impose visa bans on foreign nationals it deems to be censoring Americans. He has rather weirdly tied this into a touchstone for the security of the country, something he also did when supporting Trump's tariffs. The delegation that came to Ireland to dissuade regulators from doing anything that might cause American tech giants even the slightest discomfort was led by one of Rubio's chief advisers, Samuel Samson, who complained that Europe had devolved into a 'hotbed of digital censorship'. He accused Europe of democratic backsliding, whatever that is, claiming that it affected American security and the free speech rights of US citizens and companies. Whatever about security concerns — and it seems there is no policy, no matter how esoteric or insignificant, that the Trump administration won't link to the country's security — Americans have always been protective of their first amendment rights to freedom of expression. Flag-burning, money in politics, pornography, school prayer, mobile phone data, protests at funerals, document leaks and anti-war protests have all gone before the US Supreme Court. While that court has been somewhat haphazard in its judgments over the years, the overriding consistency about free speech cases is that the government can limit free speech if it poses a clear and present danger. Beyond that, almost everything else is fair game. In that context, the Trump administration now wants to flex its free speech muscles globally — and Ireland is as good a place as any to start. Trump started a metaphorical war on tariffs that has caused division in the European Union as individual states try to protect their patches, including Ireland, as Simon Harris, the tanaiste, showed last week in seeking exemptions from the EU in terms of tariff retaliation. Another war over any European plans to enforce new laws on social media platforms is also brewing, with ominous threats of sanctions. When McEntee first mooted the idea of combating incitement to hatred through legislation, she framed it in the context of the fundamental right to freedom of expression. There are completely differing interpretations of how far this fundamental right goes in Europe and America. Under Trump, the US has constantly asserted that it will pursue policies that are in America's interests. Those who come to lobby on its behalf should be told that Ireland and the EU follow their own path.
Times
10 hours ago
- Times
This is what spending the night at Trinity College feels like
As you step through the gates, the clamour of the city slips away behind you. Inside the cobbled quadrangle of Trinity College Dublin, the air feels older, heavier, and the hush has a faintly illicit quality — as though you've wandered into a part of the city where you're not allowed to be, which is, of course, the allure. Each summer Trinity opens its student accommodation to the public, a canny blend of tourist-savvy pragmatism and romantic fantasy. For a night (or several), you can sleep within the same walls as Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett and Bram Stoker. You can walk the same quads once stalked by the revolutionaries Wolfe Tone and Robert Emmet, both famously banished from the university for their radical politics. Founded in 1592 under a royal charter from Queen Elizabeth I, Trinity is Ireland's oldest surviving seat of learning. But its story runs deeper than mortar and manuscript. For centuries, it stood as a symbol of colonial power — a bastion of Protestant ascendancy that excluded Catholics until 1793, when legal reforms lifted the bar on admission. Even then, however, Trinity remained an enclave of elite privilege and exclusivity. The architecture offers a trace of this hauteur. At the heart of the campus stands a statue of George Salmon, a former provost who famously declared that women would be admitted to Trinity 'over my dead body'. As fate would have it, Salmon died in 1904, and women were admitted that year. Despite the grandeur, checking in for the night is a briskly modern, informal affair in a carpeted office just off Trinity's Parliament Square, staffed by unfailingly polite students in blue polo shirts. No need to queue again on your way out — simply leave your key behind. My room was in the Rubrics, the college's oldest building, completed in about 1701 and standing like a red-brick sentry over the cobbles. Inside, it's less Downton Abbey, more out-of-town Ikea — pale woods, clean lines and a minimalist finish that nods to the past without indulging it. Accessibility, as you might expect from an 18th-century building, is limited: no lift, steep stairs and only a handful of ground-floor rooms. The sash windows in the room framed a postcard view of the square below, and although mere steps from the city's main arteries, the night passed in ecclesiastical silence. By day, the campus teems with tour groups and lounging Gen Zs basking in the sun behind the Campanile. The overall effect is oddly cinematic — think Normal People meets Harry Potter, with accents from every corner of the globe. Breakfast is served from 7.30am to 10am downstairs in the college's subterranean canteen — a utilitarian space that contrasts sharply with the splendour above ground, but delivers a solid buffet of hot food, fruit, cereals and pastries. It's certainly not the Hogwarts grand hall, but the buffet is hearty and the coffee strong — enough to set up even the fussiest eaters for a day of exploring Dublin. Trinity's location is, however, its trump card. It sits squarely in the city's cultural and retail core, just a three-minute walk from Grafton Street with its buskers and boutiques, and a stone's throw from some of Dublin's renowned pubs. James Joyce fans will know that the short stroll from Trinity's gates to Grafton Street retraces the author's first meeting with Nora Barnacle in June 1904 — the courtship that inspired Ulysses and Bloomsday. Still, wandering the quad after dusk, I couldn't shake the feeling that the college had more secrets than it let on. As a history lover, I found the official campus tour a touch too tidy. Yes, it covers the essentials — the Long Room, the Book of Kells, a look inside the Museum Building and an impressive roll call of alumni, but it largely sidesteps the stranger, darker stories. Take Edward Ford, for instance, a fellow of the college who met his end in the Rubrics, just two doors down from my room, in 1734. Annoyed by a group of students carousing outside his quarters, he reportedly demanded quiet — at which point they fired a musket through his door, fatally injuring the infamous disciplinarian. The tale is well documented but conspicuously absent from the official script. Perhaps it has been scrubbed to avoid alarming more delicate guests — but for lovers of dark tourism or true crime, it's a chilling reminder of how thin the walls of history really are. Would I stay a week? Unlikely. The magic lies in the brevity — and in the quiet sense of trespass. One night is enough to flirt with one's long-lost student self, to soak in the scholarly hush of cloisters and centuries-old setting. It's not luxurious. It's not flashy. But it is quietly profound — like bedding down inside the mind of the city itself, all faded grandeur, fierce intellect and ghosts who never quite left. Details Trinity College Dublin offers summer accommodation until August 30, room-only from €91 a night;
Times
10 hours ago
- Times
An A-rated cottage just 2km from the Atlantic coast for €595,000
The stone-clad section of Black Antler — a contemporary 145 sq m, A2-rated, single-storey countryside home — marks the spot where the original two-room cottage stood on this former working farm. The 4.7-acre property had been vacant for 45 years when the present owners arrived in 2020. As the cottage was considered unstable, they opted to rebuild it using the original stone and turn into a single room — now the kitchen/diner with vaulted ceiling, a wall of exposed stone, sliding doors to an inner courtyard, custom-designed units with quartz counter tops, an island and integrated appliances. This space is open to the living room extension, which has windows on three sides to maximise light and the views, a vaulted ceiling and a custom-built TV unit and electric fireplace. A larger extension — clad in deep charred Siberian larch — on the other side of the cottage comprises an entrance hall with a huge picture window overlooking the courtyard, three bedrooms with built-in wardrobes and en suites, a guest WC and a utility room that doubles as an office. Connecting to the bedrooms is a hallway with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out to the countryside. The house has triple-glazed windows throughout, air-to-water underfloor heating and an EV charger. The property's outside space includes a long wooden-fenced driveway with views across to the spectacular Dartry mountains, patio, garden, paddocks and woodland. The agents note that the land could be suitable for hobby farming, equestrian use or to create wildflower meadows. Black Antler is about 1.5km from the N15 and about 2km — as the crow flies — from the coast. Bundoran is 8km away and Mullaghmore is about 10km. What we love The charred larch exterior and all those gorgeous window views. Good to know The house has been used as an Airbnb, achieving rates of €200 a night. Agent A grand entrance hall with Ionic columns, pilasters, archways and a rotunda overhead is far from what you'd expect to see in a vernacular Irish country farmhouse built in the mid-19th century. The 25 sq m hall in Bog Hall, Oristown, is part of a three-block extension added in 2006 during a full renovation of the existing house. Linked by new corridors on either side are the other blocks: a bedroom with an en suite at one end and a dining room with adjoining utility and guest WC at the other. • A Victorian villa on Killiney Avenue with views of the Wicklow mountains for €5.25m The new hall also opens to the original hallway, off which are a living room on one side and the kitchen on the other. All four of the main ground-floor rooms are large and dual aspect. Three more bedrooms and the family bathroom are upstairs. The house is on one acre of lovely gardens that include herbaceous borders, formal courtyard areas, and mature shrubs and trees. Outbuildings include a renovated barn, a bespoke greenhouse set within the ruins of an old farm building, and a folly-style boiler house and turf building with gothic windows and columns salvaged from a local church. What we love The big sash windows and the various shades of green woodwork. Good to know Kells is about 7km away and Navan is about 14km. Agent Built in the mid-1800s, No 1 Richmond Terrace is an elegant two-storey over basement semi-detached home with lots of original features and views at the back — from its upper windows — of the River Slaney. On Spawell Road, this 316 sq m house, which has been owned by the same family for almost 40 years, is within easy walking distance of Wexford town centre and just 650m from the train station. Accessed at the front by a flight of granite steps, its ground-floor accommodation comprises entrance hall, two fine reception rooms, each with a pair of sash windows and original shutters, fireplace and decorative cornicing, plus a study/office. • Look inside this €2.3m Victorian Dun Laoghaire home packed with original features A contemporary staircase leads down to the basement, where the main event is a kitchen/living/dining room running the depth of the house. Features include an oil-fired Aga, wood-burning stove and two tall windows that open to the garden. Also at this level is a utility room. Four bedrooms — one with direct access to a fire escape — are on the first floor and there are bathrooms on two returns. At the attic level, there's another WC and shower, plus a walk-in wardrobe and eaves storage. The well-maintained outside space includes cobble-lock driveway, a courtyard, lawn, barbecue patio, herbaceous beds and mature trees and shrubs. What we love The lovely windows and timber floors. Good to know The house is listed as a protected structure and is BER
