Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

All these amendments aim to do two things: first, to remove all the incitement to violence or hatred provisions from the Bill; and second, to deal with the consequential amendments arising from enactment of the Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2023. I will deal with these separately and will start with the first tranche.

As Senators are aware, the Bill originally aimed to achieve two objectives which were to update and modernise our existing incitement to hatred laws, and to introduce hate crime provisions for the first time in this State. Regrettably, while there was significant consensus in the Dáil for incitement to violence or hatred provisions, including opposition, that consensus was lost in proposals to expand the law further. This led to my announcement last month that I would be proposing a series of Committee Stage amendments to remove the parts of the Bill which deal with incitement to violence or hatred and to proceed only with the elements that deal with hate crime. Government endorsed this decision on 26 September so that the much-needed protections against hate crime could be progressed to enactment.

The core purpose of this hate crime legislation is to publicly recognise the harm that is caused by criminal conduct motivated by hatred and to make clear that this will not be tolerated. Hate-aggravated offences have been criminalised in most western nations. Hate crimes challenge our societies by directly undermining a sense of belonging and place which is central to inclusive communities. We must do everything we can to protect people from being targeted just because of who they are, particularly in the current climate of increasing intolerance, hatred and violence towards vulnerable and marginalised communities.

These are the first of many amendments that give effect to this decision. I recall comments by certain Senators in this House last year to the effect that this Bill would get through in a heartbeat if the hate crime elements were separated out. I am delighted that we are here and will be passing it. This is what I am proposing to do. Almost half of the Government amendments I will move this evening are to remove the incitement to violence or hatred provisions entirely from this Bill so that we can progress this important element of legislation and send a very clear message that hatred and violence are not tolerated in our society. I have said very publicly that I believe we need to update our 1989 Acts. I absolutely believe this needs to be next on our agenda.

I will outline the changes as they have been grouped and as they arise in the sections of the Bill. To begin with, I am moving amendments to the Short Title of the Act as provided for in section 1. Subsection 1 will be amended to provide for the Short Title to be changed to the Criminal Justice (Hate Offences) Act 2024. Subsequent amendments will involve the deletion of sections 6 to 16 which make up Part 2 of the Bill and references elsewhere to incitement to violence or hatred and to the EU framework decision on combating racism and xenophobia. The Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act 1989 will no longer need to be repealed. Section 4, which provides for the repeal, will also be deleted. Specifically, amendments Nos. 1, 97, 102 and 110 remove references to incitement to violence or hatred. Amendments Nos. 112, 115, 117 to 119 and 121, 122, 126 to 128 are minor technical amendments that are required in order to update the references to this legislation that are being inserted into other Acts to create new hate aggravated offences. These arise from the removal of the incitement to violence or hatred provisions in part 2 from the Bill. Amendments Nos. 134 and 135 are technical amendments that also result from the removal of the incitement to violence or hatred provisions.

The second tranche of technical amendments, from amendments Nos. 135 to 173, inclusive, result from the insertion of new offences into the 1997 Act for the Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2023 enacted last year. The relevant sections of that Act were commenced on 31 October 2023. These amendments will update section numbers and references to the new hate aggravated offences in the 1997 Act that were changed by the 2023 Act so that the legislative logic of this enactment is maintained.