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

The Minister of State's answer does get to the heart of the problem. He says that people should be held responsible for their actions, even if the authorities intervene before they do anything. How can we hold people responsible for actions that they have not taken? That goes against the main thrust of our criminal law, which relates to actual crimes that take place, not bad thoughts that people have, that they write down. That is a problem. I agree with the point the Minister of State made about the preparation of a manifesto. I see multiple examples of them. I agree that the propagation of such a manifesto, inciting violence, etc., should be an offence but it is a problem that for someone to simply write such a manifesto and to have it on their computer and for nobody else to see it will now become a crime. It goes against the basic idea that actions have to be taken and that it is the action that is a crime. The Minister of State objects to the notion of a thought crime but we are not talking about any actions here. We are talking about intervening before an action happens. The burden of proof is placed on the hateful individual to prove that they did not intend to publish it rather than it even being placed on the State to prove that the individual intended to publish it and we have simply intervened. The Minister of State says people should be held responsible for their actions, but the only action we are talking about in this circumstance is someone writing down or downloading hateful material, that is not affecting anybody else apart from their own warped, hateful mind. The idea that we should criminalise that is extremely problematic and, unfortunately, then undermines many of the good aspects of this Bill.

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