Ms Fiona Hurley:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to participate. I will shorten my opening statement to the three-minute limit. "Nasc" is the Irish word for link. We are a registered charity and we work with migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. We have a long history of anti-racism work. We have been actively engaged in calling for hate crime and hate speech legislation for over a decade and we are pleased to see progress being made on this legislation. It is only one step towards tackling racism and other prejudices. While we welcome this Bill, we have concerns about gardaí having a role in immigration enforcement and registration. Undocumented migrants and migrants with precarious immigration statuses will be reluctant to make reports.

One key issue that we have with this proposed Bill is that the definition of "hatred" in head 2 does not reflect international standards and is not sufficiently clear to provide certainty to the public, prosecutors, and Judiciary. We recommended that the definition of "hatred" be redrafted in line with definitions used by the UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression and the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance.

We are concerned about the defences for publishing or otherwise disseminating or broadcasting hate speech in head 3, which are significantly more expansive than those contained in the 1989 Act. It contains defences where the material concerned consists solely of a reasonable and genuine contribution to literary, artistic, scientific, or academic discourse. The general scheme does not contain any guidance as to how a reasonable and genuine contribution may be defined. Is this an objective or subjective test? We believe that if the discourse would otherwise reach the threshold set out in paragraph 1 of "inciting or being reckless as to whether such communication will incite, hatred", it is then an oxymoron to say that it was a reasonable contribution to the discourse.

What is political discourse? There is a reasonable defence for utterances in the Houses of the Oireachtas so we can infer that this refers to speech outside of the Oireachtas. We are concerned about the potential for fomenting hatred or racism as an election tactic.

Heads 4 to 6 of the Bill create 12 new aggravated offences which all share the same essential elements, namely, that the offence was "motivated by prejudice". We disagree with the sole inclusion of the motivation test. The requirement to prove the alleged perpetrator was motivated beyond a reasonable doubt is too high and would lead to low levels of prosecution. We are concerned that in the case of, for example, a racially motivated offence, absent evidence that the offender is ideologically racist, the aggravated offence may not be successfully prosecuted or it may be a defence to say the slur used, for example, was used in the heat of the moment or was unrelated to the reason for the offence.

We believe the use of a demonstration test, as used in England and Wales and more recently in Northern Ireland and referred to by Dr. Taylor, would resolve this enforceability issue. The demonstration test recognises that harm that occurs to the victim when the victim experiences the offence as a "hate crime". A demonstration test would be satisfied by proof that the offender demonstrated hostility, such as the use of racist, homophobic or transphobic slurs towards the victim during the commission. Nasc recommends that the Bill be amended to allow for the offence to be proved on the basis of the demonstration of hostility or motivation by prejudice.

I believe my time is about to run out. I am happy to answer any questions.