Thomas Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I find that amazing. To me, it is over-interpretation of the law. It is a bit like the brouhaha we had here over the reporting of Dáil proceedings. The whole thing was made hugely complicated by the 60 or 70 lawyers in the High Court arguing over the Constitution, when the issue was very simple. In my view, section 10 is very simple also. On the matter of raising doubts, it seems to me that academia sometimes creates these doubts unnecessarily. Section 10 is very simple and, in my view, covers communications. It seems to me that should include electronic communications. I am not a practising academic or criminal lawyer, but we often forget about a plain reading in law. In this case, a plain reading suggests that section 10 is a good provision which could be used and improved on. In fact, Senator Higgins has based some of what she is saying on it.While we support the Bill, we need to ensure that what we are doing protects children and adults and protects victims, that it does so effectively and that it does not do so in an unconstitutional way. We also need to ensure that people have the right to speak and engage in political discourse. By the way, that does not always have to be polite. People have a right to be impolite to politicians. I believe people have a right to offend politicians. Certainly, I have been offended on many occasions. Maybe that comes with the territory. It is different from the type of harm that Senator Higgins is talking about. It is different from what happened in the case she mentioned - I will not even use the word. I am not equating the two situations in any way. In my view, where someone is threatening to rape another person or to do what was threatened against the Meath goalkeeper last weekend, there are already laws to deal with that and they should be used effectively. That is wrong and it needs to be condemned fully.