Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We have ten minutes but I understood that we had 15. Anyway, I thank the Minister. We have no difficulty in supporting this proposal. In the context of world politics and what we are seeing across the world, the concept of hate crime and hate speech affects all of us. We need to be very conscious of it. I was reading up on some of the issues and came across the report, Legislating for Hate Speech and Hate Crime in Ireland, that was published in 2020. It states:

Hate crimes are signal crimes. They send a message to the victim, and to other people like them, that they are not safe, not wanted, or somehow not a real member of Irish society who is entitled to the same protections or the same freedoms as other people.

Victims of hate crime are made to feel afraid for the future, not just for themselves but for their friends, their loved ones and their children. This type of fear can lead to anger, and ultimately to a more divided society where whole communities can feel unsafe.

Those paragraphs at the beginning of the report are a very good synopsis of what we are trying to deal with here. As the Minister said, the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act 1989 goes some distance towards dealing with some of those issues but very little has happened as a result of that Act. I believe we all recognise that it is not strong enough. I agree with the Minister that we are all a little hesitant to act in this area, particularly when it comes to hate speech, because freedom of speech is paramount. People must be able to express their views and opinions on issues that are affecting their lives at any given time. However, it is not appropriate for people to insult, attack or intimidate others, and some people stretch the concept of freedom of speech to cover such actions. That is one of the core issues we have to deal with.

Of course, we also recognise that hate crime is generally an aggravating factor in another crime. It occurs when a person is being physically attacked or abused if it can be shown that the perpetrator is doing so with a racist motive or a motive related to the sexual orientation or gender of the person being attacked. I particularly think of issues related to violence against women. Can they be described as hate crimes in some of these situations? I believe they can be.

We need to try to deal with these issues. I welcome what is being done and I would welcome anything that went further in that regard. I acknowledge that the Minister is doing other work in this area. The big area where we all come into this is the online sphere and what the various platforms can do. We have to recognise that those behind the keyboards typing the words in are ultimately responsible for what goes up but the platforms that allow it to go up also have a responsibility to ensure that people are not defamed or attacked and that their integrity is not undermined. These issues have to be dealt with conclusively. I understand this legislation will go some way towards that. I hope that we can get into more of the detail as the legislation progresses. I will leave it at that because three other speakers are waiting.

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