Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I could not agree more with the previous speaker that this legislation should be parked and left for another Government, if at all. I too, and all right-thinking people, am fundamentally opposed to any hate speech - any hatred, divisions or people bring portrayed, and being attacked and undermined because of their religion, race, colour creed or whatever.

This Bill is a shambles and it seems to be a vanity project of the Minister's. It has been very interesting this evening. I could be corrected on this but when this Bill was on Second Stage in this House, it was only Deputy Tóibín and mé féin who opposed it. I recall four or five Sinn Féin speakers welcomed it; all sides of the House welcomed it. It is amazing how people can change and everybody, of course, is entitled to change. It is a bad day when we do not learn something and listen and appreciate change.

I will not repeat them but I salute Seanadóir Sharon Keogan for reading the 72 definitions of "gender" the Minister wants to have into the Official Report of Dáil Éireann and I will not bore the House with that, but it is patent nonsense as far as I am concerned, and nothing short of it. There is a half-baked Bill coming out, which is worse. The Minister is withdrawing some elements of it and, as Deputy Howlin stated, this legislation if passed will run concurrent with the 1989 Act and will lead to confusion all round. The Minister stated that the duty of any government is to protect the citizens of the state. My God, what a statement from a lame duck Minister for Justice that nobody is safe in their home. I heard a report on "Morning Ireland" that all the shopkeepers of Dublin are crying out for protection. Their staff are terrified and if they do apprehend anybody who is committing a crime in their shop, they have to wait for 15 to 20 minutes for a garda to arrive. This is on the main thoroughfare of our capital city. It is because the gardaí are not there, full stop. Total trust in gardaí has been diminished under the Minister's watch because they are being pulled from all over the country to deal with the situation in Dublin and we are left without any gardaí. We never saw anything like the lack of gardaí that we are suffering in our rural areas, towns and villages. It is unbelievable.

It beggars belief and this is the type of nonsense the Minister wants to come into this House with again tonight. I am glad that Members have concerns and issues about this Bill because they got a fair fáilte when it was introduced on Second Stage. The totally subjective nature of the Bill, where dúirt bean liom go ndúirt bean léi, or dúirt fear liom go ndúirt fear leis, or I said that you said something that might be construed as hate speech is very dangerous territory. Unlike most legislation, where any of us is presumed innocent until proven guilty, under this legislation somebody can make a complaint that he or she heard someone else say something that constituted a hate crime, or what he or she thought was a hate crime, and it is up to a Garda sergeant to then to bring a conviction on that basis without any evidence. Indeed, we debated a case on Second Stage where two people could be involved in a fracas in a public place. They might not be summonsed at all for the fracas but they could be summonsed if one muttered a so-called hate crime to the other. It is just nonsense, to me anyway. It it total, patent nonsense and nothing short of it.

The Bill must be withdrawn as far as I am concerned and left. The Minister also stated she took out parts of the Bill and would leave it to the next government, whatever shape that might be. I hope it will not be her as Minister for Justice. It is nothing personal but I am referring to her manner of supporting the gardaí and the Garda Commissioner not having the faith of gardaí. It is s serious situation that 98.7% of them do not have faith in their boss. The Minister has faith in him and she has set out how safe the streets of Dublin are. Very few streets of any town are safe. The Minister can walk down the city of Dublin, flanked by senior gardaí, saying how safe it is. We see what the retailers, other people, and the Taoiseach's famous report and aspirations of what to do to make Dublin safe. The Minister does not have the numbers of gardaí and the numbers do not have the confidence in their leader, let alone in the Minister. I think she even refused to go to one of their conferences.

The section on search warrants gives wide, sweeping powers to An Garda Síochána. I have been a supporter of An Garda Síochána all of my life and I want more support for it. Indeed I have condemned out of hand in this House and other forums attacks of An Garda Síochána. Our own very wonderful local garda, Garda John Walsh, is still out with serious injuries from being attacked and likewise Garda Philly Ryan in the next area to me. That is reprehensible in the extreme and shocking that gardaí are on their own and do not have backup or anybody to try to help them.

This is cobbled up legislation. It is a last-ditch effort by the Minister to save face and have this introduced. AI could be used to imitate a person's voice. These are not my words; these are the words of very eminent professors and other people. A person's voice could be used and recorded and the fake voice of a citizen, politician or anybody else could be used then to deem them having committed a hate offence. In that case, a citizen would be dependent on his or her laptop, records or computer or whatever to prove it was nothing to do with it him or her but this is how farcical and how dangerous this is with the evolution of AI, and what is going on and what can be done. We have seen it all over the world. Tim Morthost, director of artificial intelligence and automation at Ernst and Young Ireland said in The Irish Times:

While deep fakes have long been considered to just be fake video material, it is important to realise that this is now also spreading to both voice and text-based media. [That is what I am talking about.]

While in early days deepfakes mostly damaged people’s reputations, globally they are now used to impersonate people to commit crimes such as financial fraud and examples of people calling parents with imitations of their children’s voices to ask for money have for example been observed.

That is what happening and can happen. This legislation should be taken back and left to a more considered time.

The fact is that we only have a limited amount of time for it here tonight. Why the rush? Rushed legislation is often or nearly always bad legislation. The Minister's desire is to have it under her belt, so to speak, and have this passed. I do not think she will get kudos from any source for it.

Dublin City University, DCU, professor of computing, Professor Alan Smeaton, who is also a member of the Government's artificial intelligence, AI, advisory council, stated:

Text scams and phone scams only started a few years ago. They are now part of society and part of what it is like to live in 2024. The same will apply to deepfakes. You need to have your wits about you.

As artificial intelligence technology has become more powerful, it has also become easier to use. The latest version of Dall-E is built into ChatGPT and Bing, while Google is offering its own tools free to users. This whole area is open to widespread abuse and misinterpretation but there is no mention of it in the Minister's legislation. Her statement that the Government's duty is to protect its citizens rings hollow. The Minister has failed utterly in that regard. She is pushing through this legislation to try to tie people up in knots and intimidate ordinary citizens so as not to have their voices heard. The Government does not like the voice of the people. This has been the most anti-ordinary people Administration I have seen in my time here under four governments. I do not know why it has such a dislike of ordinary people. The games it is playing with them and the legislation it has passed are not ag cabhradh leis na daoine. The Government is not helping the people. It is all the time becoming more aggressive. Pardon the saying, but this beats Banagher out of it completely. I and my colleagues in the Rural Independent Group are totally opposed to the Bill.

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