Miriam Lord: Minister reassures anxious Senators that people will retain ‘absolute right’ to be thoroughly obnoxious

And so to the Seanad, where the Minister for Justice repeatedly reassured anxious senators that people will retain their “absolute right” to be thoroughly obnoxious and can carry on saying “horrible and hateful things” for as long as they want after the new hate speech Bill passes into law.

Which is a relief.

Usually when controversial legislation hits the Oireachtas, sparks start flying as soon as it lands in the Dáil. By the time it reaches the Seanad, most of the arguments have been made and the subject at issue has been analysed up, down and sideways in the media.

Not so the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill, which made its way through the Lower House with few TDs overly exercised by its contents and a minimum of media talking heads chronicling its progress.

The Dublin-New York Portal didn’t show us Manhattan, just our badly-behaved selves

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But by the time it arrived in the Upper House, that situation had changed.

A ramping up of social media discussion of the proposed law drew unexpected interventions from the likes of Elon Musk: “This is a massive attack against the freedom of speech” and Donald Trump Jnr: “It’s insane what’s happening in the ‘free world’”.

And as speaker after speaker testified on Wednesday during a resumed second-stage hearing, an unprecedented number of messages from people worried about the impact of this legislation on free speech and freedom of thought began arriving in their in boxes in the run-up to this debate.

“I don’t think I’ve received as many emails about a particular piece of legislation as this one” said Fine Gael’s Regina Doherty, the only member of her party apart from Minister for Justice Helen McEntee to address the session.

Most speakers from the main parties made their contributions last week.

“We have had hundreds and hundreds of emails” said independent senator, Victor Boyhan, adding they came from people in all walks of life.

His colleague Gerard Craughwell declared “I have never, in nine years in this establishment, had so many emails and so many concerns and I cannot, no matter how much I would like to try, define all of those that have contacted me as lunatic right-wing organisations. They are decent people contacting us every day”.

“The largest amount of correspondence I ever got” concurred independent senator, Tom Clonan. “They are not the keyboard warriors and lunatics ... There is an absolute wall of concern being raised here.”

While the majority wholeheartedly welcomed legislation to protect people from what the former army officer and whistleblower described as “the febrile and almost feral space our public discourse has assumed with the advent of digital platforms”, they expressed disquiet over certain aspects of the Bill which they saw as vague and possibly open to abuse.

Clonan feared the Bill could be used as “an instrument of oppression” by a future regime and it “could be easily weaponised by someone”.

There was general agreement that the Government is acting with the best of intentions and the legislation reflects this but needs to be tightened up and strengthened. Sinn Féin’s Niall O’Donnghaile explained this was why his party was backing Senator Michael McDowell’s amendment that the Bill be parked for six months for further consideration.

Regina Doherty welcomed the new measures as “absolutely necessary” but had reservations about the “ambiguity” of the wording and felt it should include a clear “definition of hatred so everyone knows where the line is”.

Fianna Fáil’s Malcolm Byrne acknowledged concerns over how to balance two competing sets of rights: the right to freedom of expression and to challenge and hold controversial opinions and the right of a person not to be challenged because of their identity or perceived identity.

“I have personally experienced homophobic abuse. I have witnessed homophobic and racist abuse against friends of mine. I have had friends who have been physically attacked because of their sexuality or their race – or, indeed, their perceived sexuality ... I advocate very strongly for freedom of expression, but questions need to be asked as to where we look to draw the line.”

If there was a loose consensus on all sides about the need to improve on the existing hate crime laws and an acceptance that the Government means well, Sharon Keogan acknowledged from the outset that her opposition to the Bill is “no secret”.

She was “speaking out against the prevailing narrative”. Warning against the further encroachment of “the nanny state” on people’s lives. What the Government is proposing is the “tip of the iceberg”.

So far, so predictable.

But wait.

People may have a certain opinion of her opinions but “more than that, it is no secret that the vast majority of Ireland is opposed to it. We know that because the Government’s own public consultation was met with 73 per cent of respondents opposing the Government’s plans to crack down on what can and cannot be said in this country without fear of prosecution.”

This line has been foremost in the commentary attacking the legislation. Such weight of “overwhelming opposition” would lead one to assume the Government would scrap its plans, but it thinks it knows best and “the uneducated Irish public must be led by the nose and taught what to think lest their empty heads be filled with insidious far-right propaganda, such as maybe Ireland has an upper limit on how many tens of thousands of people it can import”.

Keogan was reading from a script and told the handful of senators in the chamber that the Government is busy “micromanaging” how ordinary people live from what car they drive to what their children learn in school and now to what ideas and opinions they are allowed to have.

“In this way, we see clearly the anarcho-tyranny described by Samuel Francis in the 1990s, which is the combination of oppressive Government power against the innocent and ...”

Ah here, Sharon.

And even if the Coalition’s bona fides are sound and this law is forced through, then what?

Sinn Féin, that’s what.

Their action “will be paid for at the next election and then its political opponents will have this legislation to use against whom they will” she quivered, introducing the spectre of party most likely to be in power if the current crowd don’t make it back.

“Now” she said darkly. “THAT is food for thought.”

The minister, who gave a comprehensive reply addressing the voiced concerns in a methodical, reasonable if occasionally confusing way, particularly in the area of gender categorisation, addressed the “fact” widely promulgated on social media that the “public consultation outcomes have been ignored”.

Such claims have gained international prominence with the Daily Telegraph’s Michael Deacon penning a column last month lambasting Leo Varadkar’s treatment of the Irish public as “utterly shameless” for going ahead with this “draconian crackdown on so-called ‘hate speech’” when over 70 per cent of the people who responded to the public consultation opposed the new law.

But Helen McEntee said these claims are misleading and online criticism was “amplified disproportionately”.

She said there were five strands of consultation with “significantly positive feedback” from interaction with groups involved in four of the five. The fifth, the one which is constantly being highlighted, was a self-selecting online poll.

Despite Sharon Keogan’s best efforts, the second stage went through on the nod after the bid to defer the decision was defeated.