Politics

Bring hate speech legislation ‘back to the drawing board,’ says former minister for justice Charlie Flanagan

Charlie Flanagan says he would advise new Fine Gael leader Simon Harris to concentrate on housing, health and law and order

Former minister for justice Charlie Flanagan has called for the ditching of the proposed hate speech Bill. Photograph: Alan Betson/The Irish Times

Cormac McQuinn
Jack White
Mon Mar 25 2024 - 19:22

The Government’s planned hate speech legislation “should be brought back to the drawing board”, according to former minister for justice Charlie Flanagan.

Mr Flanagan has called for the ditching of the proposed hate speech Bill and said he would advise new Fine Gael party leader Simon Harris to “concentrate on Programme for Government priorities: housing, health, and law and order”.

The proposed legislation, which also covers hate crime, stalled in the Seanad last summer amid concerns about its scope and impact on freedom of speech.

Mr Flanagan posted on social media website X saying housing and health are priorities and that core values for Fine Gael include supporting business and farm families. He added: “Ditch the ill-defined Hate Bill”, and: “back to basics”.

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Mr Flanagan attended the Fine Gael event on Sunday where Mr Harris was officially named party leader. The presumptive taoiseach outlined how Fine Gael stands for supporting business, making work pay, and law and order.

[ X, formerly Twitter, promises to abide by Irish hate speech laws ]

The Laois-Offaly TD said on Monday that the hate speech legislation is “proving very controversial”, and that one of the reasons for this is an “absence of definitions”.

“We saw during the recent referendum that absence of definitions and lack of clarity can be problematic,” he added in reference to the defeated referendums on family and care.

“The Bill should be brought back to the drawing board,” he said.

Later on Monday Mr Harris said the Programme for Government commits to legislation on hate crime “for good reason”. However, he also said he is expecting revisions concerning amendments within the legislation adding: “You can be true to the Programme for Government and still be willing to listen to people on the legitimate issues that they may have raised.”

When the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill was debated in June, a number of Senators raised questions about the lack of a definition for hatred in the legislation.

Minister for Justice Helen McEntee said at the time that two attorneys general had advised against adding synonyms for hatred.

She said there is no need for the word “hate” to be defined because it is “commonly understood” by the judges, juries and those prosecuting and defending.

Ms McEntee also said defining either the words “hate” or “hatred” too narrowly “could lead to loopholes and ways of evading prosecution”.

Mr Flanagan is not the only former Fine Gael Cabinet minister to suggest the hate speech legislation should go.

At the weekend, Mayo TD and former rural development minister Michael Ring said he wanted Fine Gael to return to “core values” and to forget about social issues that have been “annoying” and “upsetting people”.

He said he wanted the “hate Bill gone” and criticised plans to overhaul licensing laws to extend drinking hours as “daft”.

[ Hate speech inciting violence now potentially illegal under EU law, regulator says ]

In response, Ms McEntee said he was “referring to two pieces of legislation out of quite a number of pieces that I’ve been working on for four years”.

She said: “We’ve had everything from policing legislation, body cameras, social recognition, family courts Bills, stronger sentences for those who conspire to murder, assault. There’s a lot of work going on in the Department of Justice...”.

A Department of Justice statement on Monday evening said the provisions of both the Hate Crime Bill and Sale of Alcohol Bill “have been carefully developed, in line with their respective Programme for Government commitments, following extensive stakeholder consultation and pre-legislative scrutiny.”

It said: “while scheduling is a matter for the Oireachtas, it is the Minister’s intention to bring both through the Houses in the coming months.”

Cormac McQuinn

Cormac McQuinn

Cormac McQuinn is a Political Correspondent at The Irish Times

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