Lorraine Clifford-Lee (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister back to this House and to the Houses of the Oireachtas following her maternity leave. I am in favour of hate crime legislation. It is not before time that we are updating the position. However, I have some concerns about the legislation and more so about what is not in the legislation rather than what is. Specifically, I am concerned at the lack of antisemitism protection in the legislation for Jewish people. There is also some vagueness in parts I would like to see cleared up. I will be tabling amendments to this legislation. I hope the Minister will engage with me and others in the House who will also table amendments. As I have stated, the Bill contains no reference to antisemitism, to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, IHRA, definition of antisemitism or to any examples of what antisemitic conduct could be criminalised. The IHRA is an intergovernmental organisation that unites governments and experts to strengthen, advance and promote Holocaust education, research and remembrance. Some 34 countries are signed up to that alliance, including Ireland, which joined in 2011. Its definition and working definition have been adopted by many assemblies worldwide. It has been adopted by the Northern Ireland Assembly. The European Commission has encouraged the adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism into our laws to combat growing antisemitism across Europe. It is acknowledged that the Holocaust did not happen in a vacuum, and that hate speech led to the Holocaust. Speech leads to physical attacks on people. We need to make sure we do not allow anything like that to ever happen again. I know the Minister will probably say that antisemitism will be covered by the religious aspect contained in the Bill. I do not believe it will be, because there are many secular and non-practising Jews. Many non-practising and secular Jews died in the Holocaust. It did not matter. They were still targeted. Neither is this Bill consistent with the IHRA definition of Holocaust denial. It does not even criminalise Holocaust denial like other countries do. It only criminalises genocide denial when directed at a persecuted person or group of people. I believe the Holocaust was the world's greatest crime, and therefore needs specific mention within our legislation to strengthen it. It was the state-sponsored mass murder and persecution of millions of European Jews, Roma and Sinti people, disabled people, political dissidents and gay people. I think we need to specifically mention it in our legislation. Furthermore, under the current draft of the Bill, denying the scope or mechanisms of the Holocaust will not be a criminal offence, as a specific Jew or groups of Jews will have to be identified as the target of the denial. I have strong doubts that any prosecutions under this aspect of the legislation would succeed. I also query the use of the term "grossly trivialising genocide" in the Bill. This means that just trivialising genocide would be acceptable and not considered a crime. I ask the Minister to explain the rationale behind this definition of "grossly trivialising genocide." In my mind, and in the minds of most right-thinking people, any trivialisation of genocide is gross and abhorrent. As I have stated, I will be tabling amendments and I hope the Minister will engage with me to reconsider this and some other aspects of the legislation.