Rónán Mullen (Independent)

I congratulate the Minister of State on bringing forward a very thoughtful and comprehensive amendment. I apologise that I was not here in person to withdraw my amendment No. 29, as I intended to do. I have not had much time to consider the amendment but I can find no flaw in it in terms of the rights of an accused person or the attempt to address a particular mischief.

I do not know if Senator Bacik was here when we discussed a Labour Party amendment this morning dealing with humanism. I was inclined to support it as it provided that the Act in question would apply to humanism, as it does to religion. I spoke about a new generosity. To take as a starting point what the Constitution states, it is not neutral on religion because it acknowledges, as I stated earlier, the homage due to almighty God. It is a specifically Christian document, and although not everybody likes that, that is how it stands.

I spoke about a new generosity in which all of us in society, whether as people of a particular faith or not, would recognise the bona fide communitarian vision of people of faith and of groups that do not profess particular religious faith but have altruistic motives. It was in that regard that I felt there could well be scope, while not categorising humanism as a branch of religion, for seeing agencies of humanism which are almost by definition not theistic as nonetheless agencies or groups of people who have altruistic motives qualifying for charitable status.

I appeal to Senator Bacik and others to adopt that same vision of a generous and inclusive future as they look at an amendment like this. I worry there is something of a Pavlovian response in certain quarters that if anything that appears to go to the benefit of religion or a religious organisation is proposed——