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

I have made the points I wished to raise on amendment No. 5. The points made by the Minister of State on the high bar that is needed are arguments not to have the religious defence. As there is a high bar, regular religious discourse will not fall into the realm of hate speech. It would do so only if it crosses a very high bar and is hateful. That is the context. That is the only circumstance where such a potential defence would come into play and, therefore, I argue that such a defence is not needed. It is not appropriate for very hateful speech that crosses a very high bar to be able to rely on a defence of it being a reasonable and genuine contribution to religious discourse. This is important.

There is a balance here between freedom of speech and the criminalising of hate speech. We are in favour of taking action against hate speech but there is the very important issue of defending the right to freedom of expression and, therefore, it is clearly good practice to insert an explicit reference to article 10 of the ECHR, including the general principle that the right applies to the expression of information or ideas that offend, shock or disturb. That simply fits into the legislation. The Minister of State made the point that it will be up to judges to interpret this and so on. That is the case but, given that this is a sensitive area with the potential to infringe on civil liberties, it is appropriate, therefore, that when judges are interpreting the legislation there is an explicit reference to the ECHR and the right to freedom of expression.

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