Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I remember being struck by a group of foreign students who came in to the audiovisual room to give their experiences of the level of violence that is inflicted on them.

The attacks and the violence inflicted upon them was shameful. The main benefit of the hate crime element of this Bill is that it sends a strong statement about attacks against those foreign students or people who are LGBT or anything like that. It makes a strong statement that this behaviour is unacceptable. I do, however, as I have said before, caution against extending this into minor public order offences. I was glad to hear the Rural Independents referring to a concern I had regarding a type of case that could come before the courts arising out of the public order Act. I have heard the criticism. I would love to say that some of the amendments that were brought forward by the Rural Independents were useless, toothless and fruitless but of course I cannot because they did not bring any amendments and neither did they attend the justice committee to express any concerns about the way this Bill was going through the Dáil. I was interested to hear them talking about a democratic State but I do not remember them or any of the parties in which they were previously involved criticising section 31 when that was on the Statute Book.

To finish, I will quote a great Kilgarvan man, Michael Quill, the great union leader in New York who stated: "If we, black and white, Catholic and non-Catholic, Jew and gentile, are good enough to slave and sweat together, then we are good enough to unite and fight together". I have heard over the last year or so people who are foreign who may be seeking asylum being blamed for almost every ill - particularly in health - and almost every problem in this country apart from maybe the lack of a Killarney bypass. It is as another great politician once said, if you do not have a programme, a bogeyman will do.

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