Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

I meant the jurisdiction of the High Court.

Again, I can put it no further. Probably most of us accept that having the offence of blasphemy is anathema to the type of society we have today. That reminds me of the linguistic gymnastics I mentioned. Senator Regan suggested, and Senator Bacik agrees, that we should deal with this in the incitement to hatred legislation. Although there may be a cross-over between blasphemy and incitement to hatred, they are two different things. I believe the Senator is really stretching the English language in saying that something which is blasphemous is not necessarily incitement to hatred. I cannot see how this could be addressed in this manner. It could be suggested that the amendment I tabled is an Irish solution to an Irish problem, admittedly, but at least it acknowledges what is in the Constitution and the requirement to have an offence. To try and hive it off into incitement to hatred legislation, however, would not do justice to out job as legislators. We would be just codding the people were we to try to include this under incitement to hatred legislation.

I thank all the Senators for their strongly held views on this issue. I hazard a guess to the effect that, whether in the form of referendum or otherwise, we may not necessarily come back to this issue for some considerable time.