Ned O'Sullivan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I ask the Leader to arrange for the Minister for Justice and Equality to come into the House at her convenience, probably during the autumn session, to outline the Government's plans to deal with hate crime and the legislation, if any, that is envisaged. The matter was well discussed in both Houses prior to this year's general election, but we did not get to the stage of taking any real action on it. We are lagging behind in comparison to Europe in this regard. We all know that hate crime is a prejudiced, mindless attack on any individual or group because of the colour of their skin, sexual orientation or anything of that nature. That is abhorrent to all reasonable people. On a more micro level, we see hate speech every day on social media. Last week, slightly in jest but not fully, I put up on Twitter that people who post anonymously should be put onto a separate forum or platform to those of us who identify ourselves and stand over what we have to say. Let those anonymous people go onto that other platform and have a happy time abusing each other and let other people get on with catching up with the news and having an occasional joust with somebody or other in a reasonable way. Some of the things that are said on Twitter are hate crimes. When I say that, the people responsible will respond that I am interfering with freedom of speech. Indeed I am not. In fact, they are an attack on freedom of speech.