"Hate speech bill advances in Ireland"

"Ireland is preparing to enact a broader ban on hate crimes and hate speech as critics warn of effects on freedom of expression.

Backers presented the bill, The Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Act 2022, as an update of a 1989 law. They cited new technological developments and newly prominent minorities such as people of different races and religions, persons with disabilities, and those who identify as LGBTQ.

The Department of Justice, in an October summary of the bill, said many consider the 1989 law to be 'ineffective,' with only about 50 prosecutions for violations in the past 30 years. It said updates to the bill protect 'genuine freedom of expression.'

'Hate speech is designed to shut people down, to shut them up, to make them afraid to say who they are and to exclude and isolate them. There is nothing free about that, and there is, frankly, no place for it in our society.'

The bill passed the Dáil, the lower house of the Irish Parliament, by a vote of 110-14 on April 26. It heads to the Senate for debate.
Commentator Dubhaltach O Reachtnin, writing in the U.K. newspaper the Catholic Herald in November, voiced concern the law could be used to prosecute priests or Catholic laity who voice Catholic teaching. The law finds that a 'body corporate' can be responsible for violating crimes, which means the Church may be culpable for 'the utterances of its more forthright members.'

CNA sought comment from the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference but did not receive a response by publication.

Some Irish lawmakers have voiced criticism of the bill.

'Most ordinary people would support the prohibition of incitement to violence and violence on the basis of hatred. However, what this law does goes much further than that,' Aontú party Deputy Peadar Tóibín said during November debate in the Irish Dáil."