Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Our society is very much lessened by the creeping incitement to hatred that has increased over recent years. While social media is often blamed, and rightly so because it speeds up the spreading of toxic hate speech, it is not the only cause. There are also often headlines in our supposedly reputable press that covertly, and sometimes overtly, incite hatred.

We must look across the board and we must hold people accountable. That is why I welcome this common legal framework to combat hate. As the Minister rightly said, hate speech is often used as a way of making people afraid after which it is easier to control them and their thinking.

Hate speech has no place inside or outside politics. Since coming to this House, I have seen things said in this Chamber that people really need to be held accountable for. During the Covid pandemic, it was used by extreme ideological movements to spread hatred on a range of grounds, including religion, sex and sexual orientation. When I talk about hate crime, I always remember Sophie Lancaster. Sophie Lancaster was a 20-year-old woman who was kicked to death for looking different. We did much work in the community in County Mayo with the Sophie Lancaster Foundation and with her mother Sylvia. We went into the schools to use the toolkit they had provided, which was the acronym for Sophie - stamp out prejudice, hatred and intolerance everywhere.

I welcome the domestic legislation that is to follow. We absolutely need to get it right. We also need to ensure it permeates down into our schools and wider communities. Hate speech has no place in our communities and no place in our country. People who spread it must be held accountable and this will allow us to do that. Attempts to dehumanise or spread fear and hate of those with opposing views or those who, somehow, we perceive as being different must stop throughout the island. We also need to call it out. Sometimes we choose to ignore it in certain quarters while we focus on it in other quarters. This is a very important step forward in a longer journey we will all make together to introduce legislation to stamp out hatred and intolerance everywhere.

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