Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

-----we cannot ignore the Constitution. The Constitution is specific that this is an offence punishable in accordance with the law. We are the legislators and we must provide that law. If we decide to leave it to some future stage, we will be in dereliction of our duty as legislators under the Constitution. I have heard what the Joint Committee on the Constitution has had to say. I appreciate that it has received legal advice. It has suggested, on the basis of the legal advice it has received, that we should look into the hearts of the people who drafted the Constitution. That is the effect of what the committee is saying. We do not have that luxury, however. We cannot look into the hearts of Éamon de Valera and those who helped him to draft the Constitution. Whether we like it or not, we have to legislate on the basis of what the Constitution says in black and white.

There is nothing we can do about the failure of the Oireachtas to do anything between 1937 and 1961. The Members of the Oireachtas of that era obviously decided, as the Joint Committee on the Constitution did some time back, that a referendum on the matter should be postponed until another day. As I said in the Dáil, our legislators decided to flunk it between 1937 and 1961. When the Defamation Bill 1961 was eventually introduced, the Government obviously operated on the basis of the same advice we are being given today, which is that if one is to legislate for all aspects of defamation, under the Constitution one must provide for an offence of blasphemous libel. The crime of blasphemy has been included in our laws, in accordance with the Constitution, since 1961. Severe doubts about the definitions used in those laws were raised in the Corway case. Nothing has been done since then. I am advised that we cannot pass this legislation without addressing that issue. We cannot let it go until another day. In the absence of a referendum in the immediate future, we will have to agree this legislation. It is as simple as that. While Senators may criticise that approach, they cannot deny that we are constitutionally obliged to provide for an offence of blasphemy in our laws.