Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 6:

In page 6, between lines 19 and 20, to insert the following: “(4) Nothing in section 2(2) shall prohibit a person from engaging in silent prayer in a public place.”.

The amendment will come in under the section that provides for exceptions to the requirements set out in section 2. Not every part of what the legislation proposes is problematic. Section 2(1) states:

A person shall not, without lawful authority, in a safe access zone, engage in conduct— (a) that is likely to obstruct or impede another person from accessing a relevant healthcare premises, and

(b) with intent to obstruct or impede that person from availing of, or providing, termination of pregnancy services, or being reckless as to whether such person is thereby so obstructed or impeded.

I have no problem following the logic that if a service is legal in the country, however much I might regret it, a person should not be obstructed or impeded from accessing it. The problematic part is the much more intolerant, much less democratic and much more constitutionally subject provision in section 2(2), which states:

Subject to [the exceptions we are looking at], a person shall not, in a safe access zone— (a) communicate material to the public or a section of the public in a manner that is likely to influence the decision of another person in relation to availing of, or providing, termination of pregnancy services, or

(b) otherwise engage in conduct directed at the public or a section of the public in a manner that is likely to influence the decision of a person in relation to availing of, or providing, termination of pregnancy services, with intent to influence the decision of such a person in relation to availing of, or providing, termination of pregnancy services, or being reckless as to whether such a decision is thereby so influenced.

Clearly, what we are talking about here is just communicating material to the public in general, and it does not matter whether that material is intended to promote the idea of having an abortion or discourage it. That information may not be communicated to a section of the public in a safe access zone. Section 2(3), with which, again, I have no problem, states, "A person shall not ... engage in conduct that is likely to threaten or intimidate a person who is accessing or attempting to access a relevant healthcare premises". In fact, a person should not anywhere engage in conduct that is likely to threaten or intimidate a person who is accessing or attempting to access a relevant healthcare premises.

How strange to confine that requirement like that. I am sure it would be unlawful in any event under other laws, but the idea it would be specified that this should not happen in a safe access zone almost seems to condone the idea that threatening and intimidating could go on legally somewhere else. Likewise, the subsection goes on to state that a person shall not "accompany, follow or repeatedly approach, a person who is accessing or attempting to access a relevant healthcare premises, with intent to influence the decision" regarding abortion and so on. That stuff would all be covered under other law in any event. Needless to say, nobody can have a problem with that, except to the extent that I wonder whether it is, by implication, condoning such unacceptable behaviour outside of a safe access zone.

In any case, the problematic subsection is the one relating to communicating material to the public, and it is to that subsection that exceptions were considered necessary by the Government. The problem, of course, is that the exceptions do not go far enough. We have dealt with, on Committee Stage at least, my proposal that seeks to exclude the Houses of the Oireachtas from coming within the curtilage of a healthcare facility for safe access zone purposes and I have made my point in that regard about the via media that applies.It is not getting rid of the 100 m zone. It is providing that material may be communicated to the public, "provided such protest, advocacy or dissent is not directed at a specific relevant healthcare premises". The second exception is that "nothing shall prohibit a person from engaging in lawful conduct that occurs inside a place of religious worship". That may need to be extended to mean the entire premises of a place of religious worship. The third exception is that nothing shall prohibit anything done by a relevant healthcare provider or any person employed by that provider, including the provision of information. That is about protecting the healthcare institution.

It is at this point that I am proposing the insertion of the additional provision: "Nothing in section 2(2)shall prohibit a person from engaging in silent prayer in a public place." It might seem strange in this day and age, when people appear still, for the most part, to believe in constitutional rights and freedoms, that it would be necessary to put it beyond doubt that a person should be entitled to engage in silent prayer. However, we saw an incident in the United Kingdom not too long ago where, in effect, a policeman harassed a person and asked her if she was engaging in prayer. The answer the person gave was that she might be doing so. I forget precisely how it went from there but I think it ended up with the person not being prosecuted.

As we have said so often in the context of the hate speech legislation, the process sometimes becomes the punishment. Even if there was never a question of a person being brought before the courts, there is the very fact that he or she may be approached by the forces of law and order. I am not the best driver in the world and I try to obey the law but there have been occasions when I have heard that noise behind me and seen the blue light in the rear-view mirror. My heart gives a little lurch and I think to myself, "Oh, God, have I done something wrong?" Of course, one either has or has not done something wrong, so there should not be that heart lurch. However, most of us try to be solid citizens. It is anathema to most decent people to think they would ever do something that might bring about a situation where they are approached by a garda and told to move on, that they are doing something that is not really considered socially acceptable, that they could be on the threshold of breaching public order or that they could be breaking the law on safe access zones and so on.

It is not something I have ever done but we should explicitly provide for the possibility that if a person is so concerned by the injustice of abortion and feels the need to be within 100 m of the location where that is happening to express prayer silently, he or she should be able to do so. Given the way our western societies seem to be going in terms of cutting back on civil freedoms, including freedom of expression, there should be provision for a particular defence in this regard. I do not say the issue is beyond dispute; the argument could be made that the Bill does not explicitly criminalise silent prayer. However, we must take into account the breadth of subsection 2(2), which relates to communicating material to the public or otherwise engaging in conduct directed at the public, and consider it in conjunction with section 1 and subsections (5), (6) and (7) of section 2.

I remind colleagues that section 1 is the interpretation section and subsections (2), (5), (6) and (7) of section 2 give the definitions effect. Subsection 2(5) states:

For the purposes of this section, a person shall be regarded as communicating material to the public or a section of the public if the person—

(a) displays, publishes, distributes or disseminates the material,

(b) shows or plays the material, or

(c) makes the material available in any other way including through the use of an information system,

to the public or a section of the public.

Subsection (6) states:

For the purposes of this section, a person’s conduct shall include conduct of any kind and, in particular, things that the person says or otherwise communicates, as well as things that the person does and such conduct may consist of a single act or a course of conduct.

Again, that invites doubt. Could standing silently, head bowed, come within the meaning of "conduct of any kind"? The reference to "in particular, things that the person says or otherwise communicates" is not a problem. The provision goes on to refer to "as well as things that the person does and such conduct may consist of a single act or a course of conduct".

In a free society, the rights we seek to protect in a democracy are not just the rights to which we ourselves can relate. I do not see myself ever getting down on my knees within 60 yd of Holles Street hospital, or any other abortion-providing healthcare facility, to lament what is going on. That is not my bag, so to speak. However, as a democrat and a legislator, I must defend the right of somebody who might want to go on his or her knees and silently witness to the injustice of what is going on. I think of the Falun Gong protestors, for example, we sometimes see on Grafton Street and in other places. I have often engaged with them. I think of how they are wronged, as are so many other groups, by the Chinese authorities. I think of their very simple, nonaggressive witness to the personal distinctiveness of what they do and stand for. I think to myself when I meet those people that at least in Ireland, for all our problems, they can stand on Grafton Street unmolested.

That is why I was concerned when I saw, a number of months ago, what happened here in Dublin to a man called Billboard Chris. He goes around the world protesting against the giving of puberty blockers to children in the context of a transgender ideology based on self-identification that encourages giving children such blockers and then moving them on to cross-sex hormones and, eventually, mutilating and life-damaging surgeries. At his protests, he displays a simple message such as "It is wrong to give puberty blockers to kids". He was on Grafton Street with his sandwich board a few months ago - I wrote an article about it in the Irish Examiner- when he was approached by a garda who was extremely polite to him. Billboard Chris, being an activist, was, I would say, somewhat rude to the garda, more rude than I would have been. He was dismissive. The irony was that the garda was completely polite but completely in the wrong. There was no legal basis-----