Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I also join Senator Darragh O'Brien in wishing everyone a happy new year and welcoming everyone back. In particular, I welcome the new schedule, the new timings for Seanad sittings and our new procedures, especially the matters on the Commencement, as they are now to be known rather than matters on the Adjournment. I was delighted to have the opportunity to raise one of those matters earlier. We will see a more efficient and more effective Seanad as a result.
I am sure others, like me, will want to express outrage at the heinous killings in Paris by extremists of people at the Charlie Hebdooffices, and related killings in the Jewish supermarket and elsewhere. I know everyone would wish to offer sympathy to the families of those killed and injured in those awful attacks. Those awful events remind us of how precious our freedoms are in a democracy and the need to ensure protection for such freedoms, such as freedom of speech. In the Seanad we already debated before Christmas the criminal justice Bill which will introduce new offences designed specifically to target those who return from having fought abroad in Syria and other such places and who may be attracted to extremism and related issues. The Bill is going through the Dáil as well. I wonder if we could have a debate in the Seanad about freedom of expression because that is the other issue, apart from security and criminal justice matters, in particular about the way we legislate on that. Many people have pointed to problems with the offence of blasphemy. I was hugely critical of the offence as it passed through this House and the Dáil in 2009 as part of the Defamation Act. We could look at amending the legislation to ensure that it does not operate as an unjustifiable constraint on free speech in a democracy. I ask that we might have a debate on blasphemy.