Ireland’s Geneva Conventions Act (1962), as amended in 1998, provides that any “minor breach” of the 1977 Additional Protocol I, including violations of Article 51(5)(a), is a punishable offence. 

In 2009, Ireland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, in a written response to a question on the situation in Sri Lanka, stated: “I believe that an independent review should consider the allegations of serious breaches of international humanitarian law in the course of the conflict, including intensive shelling by Government forces in areas in which significant numbers of civilians were trapped”.