Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)

Last year the Government sought to introduce censorship laws under the guise of hate speech legislation. The Government essentially sought to assert itself as the arbitrator as to what is and what is not hate. Recently the European Commission warned Ireland that we are outside the laws in terms of hate speech legislation. An Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, recently told an NGO that we will be working on this issue and that we must be within the European framework. This is of great concern to the people across Ireland. The Government was out of step with public opinion last year and was brought kicking and screaming into reducing or sidelining that part of the legislation. Now the European Union seeks to introduce this again. I call on the Government to tell the EU to get stuffed on this issue. We need to ensure that we have civil liberties and freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is important for everyone. Recently in Germany pro-Palestinian protesters were dispersed with water cannons and batons under the guise of spreading hate. In the Netherlands students who were voicing their opposition to what was happening to the poor people of Gaza were labelled as inciting hate. This is not just for the far right or the far left, but for everyone. It is really important that we write back to the European Union and tell it that we will not be introducing censorship laws in Ireland.

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