2026-04-28

Daniel Tatlow-Devally has been in prison in Ulm in Germany since September. He is incarcerated for 23 hours a day, effectively in solitary confinement, in pretty shocking conditions in prison. He was not allowed to hug his family until there was intervention by myself and other TDs with the German ambassador several months into Daniel's incarceration. He was not allowed to get books of his own choice. Generally he is kept in pretty awful conditions. The circumstances are that his trial was due to begin yesterday in Stuttgart. He is imprisoned because he engaged in a direct action protest against Elbit Systems, which produces 80% of the weapons for Israel which they have used to commit a genocidal massacre against the Palestinians in Gaza. The protest was attempting to uphold the obligations of all states to act to prevent the committing of genocide and which they failed to fulfil under the Genocide Convention. It was a direct action protest but it was not one where anybody was physically threatened or harmed. The people did not run away and they did not resist arrest. Indeed, they waited for the police to come and arrest them and they represented no physical threat to anybody. The German authorities have, however, decided to try to convict them under legislation that is reserved for organised crime and are trying them now in a court that is normally reserved for terrorists and for organised criminals. In the trial that began yesterday, the lawyers defending Daniel and the four other members of the Ulm Five who were involved in the direct action protest against Israel's genocide and the complicity of Germany and Elbit Systems in that genocide, described what happened in the courtroom as completely unprecedented. The lawyers had never seen anything like it. For example, in any normal trial in Germany the person who is on trial, even if they are a terrorist or a neo-Nazi murderer, can sit with their lawyers. They can sit in between their lawyers but in an unprecedented move this is not being allowed to the Irish citizen or to the other members of the Ulm Five. They are put in behind a high-security glass cage, essentially, so they cannot communicate properly with their lawyers. They are being tried as organised criminals when they represented no physical threat to anybody but were actually acting to protest against genocide. I was talking to an MP from the German Parliament who was going down to monitor the trial and he was not physically allowed into the court. He was told that it was full, but Daniel's mother was in there and she said it was not full at all. The legal team on behalf of the defence is saying they have never seen anything like this. They have called for the judge to recuse herself such is the level of obvious bias. There were riot police in the court physically threatening members of the family and people who were in there, suggesting violence and so on against them. It is a show trial. They are asking that the Irish Government would send monitors to look over this trial, which will be spread over multiple days across May, June and July. We call on the German Government to stop treating these people as if they are organised criminals when actually they are people upholding international law in protesting against the genocidal horror that Israel has inflicted on the Palestinian people, for which Elbit Systems provides the means for Israel to commit that crime.

I am responding on behalf of my ministerial colleagues in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade who are unavailable due to their ministerial duties this evening. Providing consular assistance to Irish citizens who find themselves in difficulty abroad, including in cases of arrest or detention, is a cornerstone of the work of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and its embassies and consulates around the world. Each year the Department provides support to a significant number of Irish citizens arrested or detained overseas. Our ethos has always been to place a strong emphasis on ensuring that Irish citizens receive timely and empathetic consular assistance. We are aware of the case referred to by the Deputy. Consular assistance has been provided to the citizen referred to since September 2025, soon after their detention. I can confirm that a dedicated consular officer in the Consulate General of Ireland in Munich has been assigned to support the citizen and their family and has provided support and advice in accordance with the Department's consular assistance charter. I can further confirm that staff in the Consulate General in Munich, including the consul general and deputy consul general, have undertaken four consular visits to the citizen in prison, most recently on 10 April. We are in regular contact with the citizen and with family members. Consular visits are an opportunity to check on the welfare of a citizen, ascertain if there are any medical issues that require attention, offer pastoral support, and assess the conditions of detention. Our consular officers can also act as conduits, helping to share information from and to loved ones in Ireland if that is required by the citizen. I understand that the conditions of detention in the case referred to by the Deputy are the same as those of any other person in their situation, which includes access to video calls and in-person visits. Prisoners at the facility in question also have access to a social worker. I understand that court proceedings in this case started yesterday. As laid out in the consular assistance charter, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and its embassies and consulates abroad are precluded from intervening in the judicial and legal processes of another country. Therefore, it would not be appropriate to comment on the ongoing legal case. The Deputy asked that we send monitors to the trial. I will bring this back to the Minister. I assure the Deputy that the Department will continue to provide all necessary and appropriate consular assistance to the citizen and their family.

The Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, is not the senior minister and he is just reading off the script, which is a bit frustrating given that there is somebody facing very serious charges in a court in Germany and is being treated in an absolutely disgraceful way for protesting against genocide. This is about genocide. Ireland and Germany and 153 other countries are signatories to the Genocide Convention. In case the Minister of State does not know what is in that convention, I will outline what we signed up to. What we signed up to and what every signatory did, after the Holocaust, was to prevent even a suspicion of a possible genocide taking place, and to act to prevent it and to do all in our power. States have failed to do this, self-evidently. This is why Ireland eventually joined South Africa's case against the genocide. People have not prevented it because, of course, the genocide continues in Gaza. Daniel, an Irish citizen, and other people acted to do what states have failed to do, to try to disrupt the ability of Elbit Systems in Germany to provide Israel with the weapons to commit a genocide. For this, the German Government is prosecuting them as if they were organised criminals. This is not just for property damage, protesting or public order offences but as organised criminals. It has brought them to a courthouse normally reserved for terrorists and people involved in organised crime. There are riot police all over the place. Restrictions are being imposed which their legal team says are completely abnormal. The judge will not even talk to the defence legal team about the conditions in the court and the conditions under which Daniel is being detained. This is not normal. To simply say we do not interfere is not good enough when an Irish citizen is being treated like this for protesting against a genocide, which the Irish Government even thinks may be a genocide and why it has joined the case. We are asking the Government to send monitors to the trial, to make a public statement in support of Daniel, and to say the way he is being treated by the German legal system is an absolute disgrace. That pressure can impact on the German Government.

I thank Deputy Boyd Barrett. As I mentioned, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is fully aware of this case and has provided all appropriate consular assistance to the citizen and their family since September 2025 and will continue to do so. The Department, through its consulate general in Munich, has been in regular contact with the citizen since their detention began, and a series of consular visits has been possible to verify that the conditions of their detention are in line with those of other detainees.

They are not. I am telling you they are not.

Our embassies and consulates overseas play a vital role in providing support to Irish citizens who have been arrested or detained, and this is a core part of our consular assistance mandate. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is precluded from intervening in the judicial and legal processes of another country in the provision of consular assistance. I will bring Deputy Boyd Barrett's views back to the Department.