The provisions of the new “hate crime” law come into effect today after Minister for Justice Helen McEntee signed a commencement order, the Department of Justice has said.
The Criminal Justice (Hate Offences) Act 2024 was passed by the Oireachtas in October and means that where hatred against certain categories of people has been demonstrated, it will lead to harsher sentences.
The persons the law seeks to protect are those targeted because of race, colour, nationality, religion, national or ethnic origin (including Traveller), descent, gender, sex characteristics, sexual orientation or disability.
Gender is defined as the gender of a person “or the gender which a person expresses as the person’s preferred gender or with which the person identifies and includes transgender and a gender other than those of male and female”.
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Existing crimes cited in the law include criminal damage, public order offences, assault, coercion, threatening to kill or injure, and distribution or display in public of threatening or abusive material. These now become hate crimes, with harsher sentencing, if the demonstration of hatred towards a protected group is proven.
If the hatred element is not proven in court, then the other aspect of the charge can still lead to a conviction.
As well as the new hate crimes, the law provides that if, in the trial of any other offence, there is evidence of a hate crime element, the judge will treat that as an aggravating factor and record the conviction as a hate crime.
The new law was passed after the Government decided not to proceed with the so-called “hate speech” crimes that were contained in the original Bill. However, the 1989 Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act remains in force.
Even with the hate speech element excised, the legislation was opposed by Sinn Féin and others. It was passed with a vote of 78 in favour and 52 against.
Ms McEntee, speaking prior to the vote, said the law “creates specific offences based on an aggravated offence model to ensure those who target victims because of their association with particular identity characteristics are identified as perpetrators of hate crime”.
“Perpetrators of hate crime send a message to our minorities and our most vulnerable communities that they are not safe, that they do not have a right to be who they are and that they do not belong in Irish society,” she said.
The new law would “send the counter-message that hate motivated attacks will not be tolerated, perpetrators will be punished and marginalised, and targeted communities will be protected”.
In his contribution, Sinn Féin’s Matt Carthy, among other criticisms, read out the definition to gender contained in the legislation and said: “Most people do not understand what this means precisely.”
Mick Barry, of People Before Profit, expressed concern about how the reference in the law to a person demonstrating hatred at the time of an alleged offence might be used.
“A garda will just have to say that an accused person was heard using hate speech while committing another offence,” he said. “This could be taken as evidence and used to convict. It could also be used to stigmatise political movements and activists.”
Ms McEntee said it was important to remember that the law addressed situations where “a crime has already been committed”, so that the demonstration of hatred would have to be accompanied by some other offence.
On the issue of the definition of gender, she said many people were missing the point.
“This is not about somebody’s legal definition. If somebody is being attacked, they are not being asked if they have a gender certificate. They are not being asked if this is their gender or what their gender is. They are being attacked because of who they are.
“The approach we have taken here is deliberately inclusive to ensure we are adequately capturing the individuals and communities we know are targeted by these crimes,” she said.
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