Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

We take the point on amendment No. 1 in the context of the case law that establishes what hatred means. To explain what we are doing in amendments Nos. 2 to 4, inclusive, we are saying that someone would be guilty of an offence if they communicated material to the public or behaved in a public place in a manner likely to incite violence or hatred against a person or group of persons. Clearly, we agree that it should be an offence to behave in such a manner that one is likely to incite violence against a person. However, we think it is better to specify actual negative consequences for someone, thereby replacing the word "hatred" with the phrase "intimidation, hostility or discrimination." In and of itself, causing someone else to have hatred should not be sufficient to establish a crime. As a result, we need to be more specific about the negative consequences we are talking about. To be clear, I am not at all downplaying the negative consequences of hate speech or the violence, intimidation and so on that flow from it. We need to be explicit in the legislation in respect of that.

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