Paul Murphy questions UK civil liberties amid Gaza protests

I want to ask you whether you think there's any national security implications for the significant decline in basic civil liberties that is happening in Britain, the prescription of organisations of Palestine protesters like Palestine Action, the denial of the right to a jury in the vast majority of trials, and what's happening now with the holding of Palestine protesters who are charged with nothing more than property damage, being held now for over a year without trial and without access to bail. The consequence is that there's now eight protesters on hunger strike. They were on hunger strike for over 30 days. This is the longest, most significant hunger strike since the H-Block hunger strikers. Their demands are very minimal for the right to a fair trial, for the right to access bail, for the right to access medical care in prison, and for the ending of the prescription of Palestine Action. There's an almost total media blackout on this in Britain, leading people to suspect there's a so-called de-notice in relation to this. Are you concerned about the decline of civil liberties and the fact that people are forced to go on hunger strike in Britain? Deputy Ryan Omar. In terms of the Deputy Murphy, United Kingdom does not present a national security threat to Ireland. The issue you raised in terms of the civil liberties issue within the UK, it's an issue the UK has to challenge and deal with. I noted your comment, nothing more than property damage. That was interesting. No, I don't believe in people should be... Interned. No one should be interned, but I love your casual approach to property damage. It's fine, it's grand. Don't worry about it. Let's continue doing it. Well, please. Ah, come on. Deputy Murphy, you made your point already. No, Deputy Murphy, we're not doing this. We are not doing this, Deputy Murphy, we're not doing it. There are other members to be regarded. Deputy, I can say to you, deputies in this House have had their property damaged. I don't believe that should lead to interment or anything like that. No, no. But let's be very clear. Allow the answer. In dealing with protest, there's different levels of protest. The right to protest, the right to free speech is absolutely inviolable. It has to be allowed and facilitated, of course, in any true democracy. When protests get too extreme, you then are impacting on other people's rights to personal safety, life and property. And I would respectively suggest to the Chair that that's something you don't pay much attention to. I would ask if you want interaction. In terms of the other issues that Deputy Amaro raised, and I think I've dealt with some of those aspects in terms of what happened on the night and so forth. And also to say that in terms of the EU presidency that people have raised, there is a lot of work underway in terms of preparing for that. The Garda-Chicón is central to the security planning and preparation. It has established a dedicated European Union presidency coordination office led by the Deputy Commissioner, policing operations to oversee all aspects of operational planning, logistics, interagency engagement. There's ongoing interdepartmental engagement to a whole range of forums and so on like that. Close cooperation with European policing and security partners concerning the presidency is ongoing as per the norm. In the modern security area, you have to coordinate and cooperate and share intelligence with other agencies. That is absolutely key. Otherwise, you're at nothing in terms of protecting the state or protecting our people. I don't want to go into all of the details. Some of this is security sensitive. And I have a report in respect of the drone situation. But when we're discussing security, there has to be an understanding that there are limits to what can be put into the public domain because that impacts further gathering and garnering of intelligence. It also impacts on our capacity to withstand further threats and so on like that. And there will be a lot of planning for VIP protection, venue security, transport management, cyber resilience, public order contingencies. All that's been worked on. It is a mammoth task. It's a huge operation. And it's something that, you know, I think certainly other member states have had to do something similar. It's a signal, or sorry, symptomatic of where we are in terms of the European, of the threats to European security and so forth. And I think Deputy Rose, Conor Walsh, I dealt with most of it. I was responding to you there in respect of that. Sorry. Deputy. I'm not finished. Absolutely not. You have to take the answer. I'm not finished yet. Sorry, Ken. All right. In terms of no member state yet, bar I think France in the last 40 maybe hours have attempted to disable drones or bring them down. Okay? For different reasons. All right. So that's a matter you have to leave to the operational people in charge. So we can't dictate that sort of a response here. We do have the capacity, yes. If you need a topic of question, put one down. But again, it is a matter for those on the ground and those in the theatre to decide the best response and the most appropriate response at the time. And I dealt with some of Deputy Tobin's questions. I have received, and that's why we established, the National Security Council has been established. And there was a clear structure emanating from that in terms of awareness, in terms of being briefed and so forth. And I was briefed on this incident. I sought a briefing immediately on it and I've received it. And obviously it's something that will be discussed at the National Security Council later.