Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We welcome the legislation. We have been campaigning for it for many years. Previous Ministers for Justice said there was no need for it because of the 1989 Act which, as the Minister has just admitted, was ineffective. We welcome this debate and opportunity and we welcome the legislation, which we have to get right. I want to start on a positive note. I have just come from the Irish Traveller Movement Yellow Flag Awards in the Ark in Temple Bar. I saw all the children. If any of us wants to have any hope for the future, we should go to a school engaged in the yellow flag process and see what those children are achieving together and what we can learn from them. It was so inspirational and emotional to see children from all parts of the country coming together talking about their learnings and living in an Ireland which is so much more rich and exciting than the Ireland I grew up in. The Ireland I grew up in was stale, old and failed and everybody wanted to leave it. Now we have a country which is full of families who have come here to become Irish, to be Irish and to share this international experience. It is facilitated by the Irish Traveller Movement. I see Bernard Joyce is in the Gallery and he is so very welcome to witness this debate.

It is striking, however, that the teachers of these children do not look like the children in their schools as much as they should. The first interface of a child with the State is probably in their primary school, maybe in junior infants. Far too many of our teachers are not as diverse as the children they teach. We need to challenge that and rectify it. There are reasons behind it. We do not need to flesh them out here. It has been said that hate comes from somewhere. Hate comes from ignorance and fear. It can come from poverty but not always. Some of the most closed-minded people I have ever come across are those who have most. Those who have most sometimes are most worried about losing what they have. They have this perception that equality is about taking from them the privilege they have and have always had. We need to challenge that as well.

On the legislation, I have great misgivings as to how this is being done and how the Bill is being managed. We were asked as Members of the Oireachtas to submit our amendments yesterday, before the Second Stage debate which was due to happen yesterday and is happening today. That is not the way to do business. I raised it on the Order of Business yesterday. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform admitted that it was not best practice as did the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. I have written to the Ceann Comhairle to express my disappointment and to make clear that if we are trying to amend legislation that we have to get right, because we have waited so long to get it right, we have to do it in the proper way. To demand of Deputies to submit amendments to a Bill before the Second Stage debate is not the best way to go about it.

Leadership has been spoken of. I accept what other Deputies have said about political leadership, yet within these Houses we have had voices who have not helped. We cannot pretend that all of this hatred comes from anonymous online groups. We have to call it out for what it is wherever it happens. It happens in this Chamber. We have a Deputy of this House who has said that asylum seekers are freeloaders, hoodlums and blackguards. We have another Deputy who speaks in this Chamber and who has said that asylum seekers and immigrants need to be deprogrammed. We have members of the Minister's own party who have said that they will not deal with black Africans. We have had the most disgusting, violent, appalling things said about the Traveller community for as long as I have been involved in politics and people generally get away with such statements. They may have a small period of suspension from a political party but there is always a readmittance. That has to be called out and it has to stop. All of us in our own political entities, groupings and organisations have an absolute responsibility to call out hate and racism wherever it comes from. It is not good enough for us in the political system to stand up and make speeches about how much we agree with ourselves on how hate is terrible, but at the same time sit in committees and chambers with people who are well versed in using language to punch down on vulnerable communities when they know they can get away with it. One of the Minister's own colleagues, who just happens to be the Chair of the education committee, only two weeks ago described people in addiction as "druggies". He was speaking from about two rows behind the Minister. We all have a responsibility in how we manage the way we speak.

We have an issue with hate. We have to understand hate, define it and work to eradicate it. We have to understand where it comes from. Criminalising it is one way of doing it but education is another aspect of what we have to speak about. If somebody is guilty of an offence under this Act, we have to meet what everybody wants to happen and what the victims of such a hate crime want to happen, namely that this individual will not reoffend and it will not happen again. We have to ensure that there will be a process by which this person can understand how their hatred has led to a situation of such destruction, unhappiness, anger and pain. We need to reflect on that. What we do not want is for somebody who is convicted of an offence under this legislation to double down on their hatred. There absolutely will be bad actors out there who will convince an individual who may be guilty of an offence that this is political correctness gone mad and that they have been criminalised for something that was in their head and that this is what happens when progressive politics goes too far. They will double down and potentially commit themselves to a lifelong venture of hatred. We need to be mindful of that.

We have received submissions from academics, and particularly from the University of Limerick. I give great credit to Dr. Jennifer Schweppe and Dr. Amanda Haynes for the work they have done over more than ten years advocating in this space. When someone who has advocated for hate crime legislation for so long points out deficiencies in the Bill, we really have to take notice of what they are saying. We are anxious to get this legislation passed but we cannot rush it. If we get this wrong, if we make a mistake or if there is a false line in what we produce or pass, there are well-organised and well-financed groups that will pick holes in what we have passed and use that to politicise and radicalise young men in particular.

The Ireland that I grew up in was made for people just like me. It was made for white, middle-class, able-bodied, heterosexual men. It was made for us. We have always run this place. We see ourselves everywhere. When I was growing up I saw people just like me in positions of power. The teacher, the garda and the person on television all spoke like me, all looked like me and all sounded like me. Such figures tended to be white, middle-class, able-bodied, settled, heterosexual males. If we walk around the halls of this esteemed building we generally see people who look just like me. If someone does not come from the background I come from and does not have that experience of seeing people just like themselves in positions of authority, they need the political system to work for them. It was interesting listening to the children this morning and to the presenter, Emer O'Neill. She is from an African background; her father is from Nigeria. She said she came to the conclusion when she was six that she just wanted to be different. She was dying to be different from what she was; she was dying to be the same as everybody else, because she was half African. That is such a heartbreaking thing to hear any child think.

I am coming back to the point about the legislation and how we have to be so sure that if somebody falls foul of it, it is not something that is going to hang over them forever but offers potential for them to redeem themselves and think differently about themselves and their conduct. There is a difference. We have to concede that there is a difference in respect of a premeditated action of somebody who is hate-filled and decides to organise a hateful action of violence against a group or individual that they hate because of their identity.

There is a difference between that and somebody in the course of a criminal action who is heard to utter something that is discriminatory. Those are two different things and if we treat them similarly we are making a grave mistake. We are possibly losing that second person for good by making them a hate criminal in so much as they are now equated with the individual who did something that was premeditated and organised. We need to reflect on that. That is why we feel so strongly about the amendments we have put down and why we are determined to work with the Minister and to ensure that this Bill, which has long been sought, is successful.

Let us learn from the children. We had our chance. This is the country we have effectively shaped at this point in our lives but they come from a different Ireland to the one I came from. Their Ireland is so much more exciting, fresher, richer and has so much more talent. I am envious of the Ireland they and our children are growing up in versus the failed country and state I grew up in. I want them to grow up in a country that reflects them so that when they see people in power, people of influence and role models in their communities, they look just like them. We have to reflect on how many people of different backgrounds are in An Garda Síochána, politics, the teaching profession and other professions. How can we empower people to do that? We have to reflect on the comments that are made in chambers like this. It is quite rightly said that anti-Traveller sentiment is given free rein in too many political chambers. It is the last bastion of hatred which is almost given social acceptance. That has to be challenged and we have to do it in chambers such as this. Those who will punch down need to be challenged in political chambers.

As we move forward it is not good enough for us to produce legislation in which, while doing the right thing, we make a mistake in labelling somebody for saying something stupid in the course of a criminal action, versus a person who has, over a period of time, demonstrated their hatred and organisation around that hatred. We have to be mindful of that and restorative justice has been mentioned. With all those things in mind, this is what a republic does. This is not about limiting free speech or thought policing. This is about ensuring that every child who grows up in this country can feel at ease and be themselves. Being themselves should be enough and no child at the age of six should ever have the heartbreaking thought cross their mind when they look in the mirror and wish that they were not what they were. We have to ensure that every child we have can grow in a country in which they are respected and that if there comes a point where an organised hate group or an individual decides to undermine them, the law is there to protect them and root that out. We have our responsibilities as well and Members of this Oireachtas need to know and be put on notice that we will be calling them out.

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