Eileen Flynn (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for taking the time to deal with this Commencement matter this morning. I was very disappointed to learn the Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, has decided to drop the incitement, or hate speech, sections of the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022. We can all agree that our legislation is not fit for purpose and we are seeing a dangerous and disturbing rise in intolerance, intimidation and violence against minority communities. The Garda reported a 12% increase in the number of hate crime and hate-related incidents between 2022 and 2023. It seems that now is the time to put robust hate crime legislation in place. This means amending the legislation where amendments are needed and not scrapping the hate speech section of the Bill.

There has been time to bring forward amendments, yet progress on the Bill has been stalled. The Coalition Against Hate Crime has also expressed its disappointment that, after years of hard work, the Minister has decided not to bring hate speech legislation forward. The coalition is made up of 23 civil engagement groups representing the people who are most likely to be targeted by hatred. The coalition calls on the Government to move quickly to ensure this long overdue legislation is debated and passed urgently and to resist any attempt to weaken the protections.

When I look for consultation and consensus on hate crime legislation, I look at the people who are most affected by hate crime legislation. These are the brave people who are people of colour, Traveller people, disabled people and LGBTQI+ people who get up every morning, now more than ever, in this country and go about their daily lives with no protections in place. They are the people I am looking to for consensus. They are the people I think the Minister for Justice should look to for consensus. No disrespect to any politician in any House, but she should not look to the white upper-class politicians who are not impacted by incitement to hatred, racism, discrimination or being attacked on the street just because of their identity. I am well aware there have been numerous attacks on politicians in the past year. Of course, I am totally against this. I am speaking about hate crime and people being attacked because of their identity.

The hate speech part of the legislation is very important. What are the Minister's thoughts on consensus? I understand it is coming from politicians but Dr. Ebun Joseph said that leaving out hate speech from the legislation sends out a message that words that harm and divide are not taken seriously.I can tell the Minister of State, as I said earlier, that people from the Traveller community, people of colour and disabled people take these words extremely seriously. As she knows, verbal abuse can lead to physical abuse. I will not go into the nuts and bolts of it. When we talk about consensus, we cannot wait for good, robust hate crime legislation. We have seen it in the streets every single day in the past year or year and a half with the rise of the far right. We must protect everybody. I understand it is about the violence of hate or attacking somebody but hate speech is equally important.