In a partial victory for free speech, the Irish Government is to drop controversial provisions contained within its new Hate Speech Bill. Those provisions would have made “communication” of material deemed capable of inciting “hatred” punishable by up to five years in prison, and mere “possession” of such material punishable by up to two years.
According to the Irish Times, Minister for Justice Helen McEntee received approval the leaders of the coalition Government over the summer to remove those parts of the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill that deal with incitement to violence and hatred – commonly known as the ‘hate speech’ elements.
Speaking in Athlone, County Westmeath on Saturday, Ms. McEntee confirmed that the incitement to hatred element of the bill “does not have a consensus” – although, ominously, she went on to say that it will be dealt with at a later date.
Separately, a coalition source told The Irish Times: “While there was significant consensus in the Dáil for hate speech laws, with proposals from the Opposition to expand the law further, that consensus was lost.”
In what is likely to be seen as a clearing of the decks for an election that has to be called no later than March 2025, Ms McEntee will now introduce committee stage amendments to the bill, which has been stuck at Third Stage in the upper house of the Irish parliament since July.
The amendments will remove sections 7-10, with the bill then proceeding only with elements that mandate tougher sentences for existing crimes where the perpetrator of an offence is motivated by ‘hatred’ of the victim’s protected characteristic(s).
As a consequence, existing laws on the prohibition of incitement to hatred in the country will not be repealed and will remain in force.
Under the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act 1989, which targets speech intended and likely to cause physical violence, the prosecution has to show the accused intended to incite hatred. What was so chilling about the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill as it is currently written, is that it went further on both counts – effectively lowering the criminality threshold from “incitement to violence” to “subjectively offensive”, while at the same time holding defendants liable even if they didn’t intend to stir up hatred.
Under the current iteration of the bill, it is a crime punishable by up to five years in jail to say anything, on- or offline, which anybody with a protected characteristic drawn from a long-list of such characteristics –race, religion, national or ethnic origin, gender (including transgender), etc. – perceives to be ‘hateful’.
In other words, the bill risked becoming an open invitation to every woke activist south of the Irish border to claim they perceived such-and-such a comment to be both “subjectively offensive”, with every Christian street preacher being accused of “homophobia” and gender critical feminist of “transphobia”.
Even if cases involving perceived hatred never reached the courts, the investigatory process – the knock on the door, the officers of the law pushing past you into your living room, the confiscation of your phone and laptop, the formal interview at the police station – would inevitably have had a chilling effect on free speech.
This was a point made by the independent Senator and former Justice Minister Michael McDowell, who took to the floor of the Seanad last year to express concern that Irish citizens would “shut their mouths” to “avoid the danger of being prosecuted”.
In a sinister echo of Ireland’s Committee on Evil Literature, which was established in 1926 – and the Censorship of Publications Act which followed and prohibited the sale and distribution of “unwholesome literature” – the bill also contains provisions that make it a crime, punishable by up to two years in jail, to “prepare or possess” material likely to incite hatred.
“Possession” in this context could simply mean having a dodgy meme or cartoon saved on your phone, or a copy of Mein Kampf on your laptop. These and other, similar cultural artefacts would certainly have fallen within the ambit of the criminal law, since the bill as written – e.g., Sections 10(1) and 10(3) – reversed the usual burden of proof, with the burden of proof resting with the accused to demonstrate the material was just for personal use.
Any attempt to frustrate the authorities in their pursuit of “unwholesome literature” wouldn’t have got tech-savvy Irish citizens very far since the legislation includes a provision that makes it a crime punishable by a fine of up to €5,000 or a year in jail to refuse to give the Garda a password to any electronic device that you own.
Ms. McEntee previously insisted that this section of the bill – section 10 – wouldn’t curtail freedom of expression because section 7(3) includes defences for “a reasonable and genuine contribution to literary, artistic, political, scientific, religious or academic discourse”. She argued it would therefore be possible to “debate and discuss issues regarding protected characteristics” and “offend other people or express views that make others uncomfortable”. The distinction, she said, is that “you can be offensive, say things that make others uncomfortable, have full and robust debate – but you cannot incite hatred or violence”.
But how much protection would this “distinction” actually provide, given that none of the legislation’s keywords and phrases – “hate”, “hatred”, “reasonable and genuine contribution” – have ever been defined?
Consider, for instance, a case like Dr. Nathan Cofnas, the Free Speech Union member and early career research fellow at the University of Cambridge, whose college recently cut ties with him over his research interests, which lie in controversial topics such as race and intelligence. In the world according to Helen McEntee, would his work receive legal protection as a “reasonable and genuine contribution” to scientific and academic discourse, or would it end up costing him his freedom?
How about an Irish art gallery that exhibited Andres Serran’s Piss Christ, that long controversial red and yellow photograph of a crucifix plunged into a vat of the artist’s urine? Is this “reasonable” art, or, as the country’s Committee on Evil Literature might have put it, “morally corrupting”?
And what about mocking memes – as independent senator Ronan Mullen asked during a debate on the proposed legislation in the Senate. “Will carrying a placard stating, ‘Men cannot breastfeed’ warrant a hate-speech investigation or up to five years’ imprisonment, a lifelong label as a criminal hater, and all of the stigma and life limitation that goes with that?” he asked, before concluding: “Nobody actually knows.”
Reacting to the Government’s decision to scrap the law’s hate speech provisions, Independent Teachta Dála (TD) Carol Nolan said: “This is a victory for free speech and a calamitous political and ideological defeat for Minister McEntee and a government that had to be pushed into accepting the validity of basic democratic norms.”
“It also demonstrates that the Minister is now an electoral liability,” she added.
Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín said he was delighted to see that the Government has dropped plans for hate speech law. It was a censorship law, which sought to prevent people articulating opposition to many of the Government’s policies, he said. Indeed, over the last few years, the Government had become increasingly authoritarian in terms of how it dealt with dissent.
“We’re delighted that our work against the bill has helped to bring about this outcome,” he said.
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What frightens me is the realisation in recent years that there are many people among us who want to censor speech in a very big way. Powerful, influential policy makers who want this stuff
I grew up convinced that literally everyone thought free speech was unquestionably a good thing.
It pains me to realise I was.completely wrong.
Wholly agree.
What astounds me is that discussions around ‘free speech’ are now taking up so much of our time. Even as recently as twenty years ago free speech or lack of rarely came up for debate. Now? Not a day goes by where some organisation isn’t redefining ‘free speech’ and the redefinition is always against free speech even though it is a bloody certainty that the author maintains otherwise.
Ony two things to know about free speech (1) It’s free, and (2) It’s only speech.
What frightens me more is that lots of people I know seem to be quite happy with the idea that mis and dis information should be regulated/suppressed. Some of them I suspect because the prevailing orthodoxy coincides with their ideas, and some of them because they are lazy and want to outsource critical thinking to some “trusted” third party.
On discussing this kind of stuff with a friend who isn’t particularly interested in Politics because to him it is all boring stuff and he would prefer going to the football with his kids, going fishing or going off to a caravan with his Border Terrier, he said “Well you cannot go around calling people fat”———-I could not believe my ears. I said to him “It is not the proper role of government to be regulating what we can all say and cannot say to each other, they cannot even stop us stabbing each other or burgling each other and they cannot even stop morons walking into supermarkets and filling up their rucksack”
Good, small victories and all that. Hopefully McEntee and her ilk will be shown the door at the next election. Lots of ordinary Irish are *not* happy with the way things have gone in that country.
The abomination that is the piece of “art” described in the article is horrendously offensive to Christians like myself, and it is an affront that such an obviously deliberately provocative and mocking piece was considered suitable for public exhibition (let alone the fact that it is of no artistic merit).
How Ireland has fallen.
What has happened to the Weekly Sceptic podcast with Young and Dixon? Is it a summer break
No its all over. Mutual agreement apparently. Nick Dixon has his podcast “The Current Thing”
Oh thanks : I used to enjoy it
“Under the current iteration of the bill, it is a crime punishable by up to five years in jail to say anything, on- or offline, which anybody with a protected characteristic drawn from a long-list of such characteristics –race, religion, national or ethnic origin, gender (including transgender), etc. – perceives to be hateful”
WHAT?????????????????????????????????????????????? You have got to be joking? The general Public should NEVER EVER STAND FOR THIS TOTALTARIAN NIGHTMARE
Someone has decided to thumbs down me for my comment. That is fair enough as everyone is entitled to an opinion, but let us just be clear then that this person obviously thinks that if anyone “PERCEIVES” someone’s words to be hateful then it is automatically so and they should face imprisonment.–Anyone who thinks this is what should happen in a free society is a blithering idiot and so the person who down ticked me is therefore a blithering idiot. ——-I hope you don’t perceive that as too hateful, but if you do, I do not give a s..t.
It was great back years ago when you could tell jokes like this (which should be told with a strong Dublin accent)——— Paddy goes into a chemist shop and says —“Have you anything at all now for a severe loss of the voice”?, and the assistant replies “Good Morning now sir, can I help you at all”? —–But we cannot tell jokes like this anymore so I won’t tell it.