Ireland’s deeply sinister hate crime bill

These are certainly interesting times in Ireland. Like every other European country, there’s a cost of living crisis. Mortgages are going up. Inflation is wiping out savings and the ruinous impact of our strict lockdowns is still killing jobs.  

We’ve even spent recent days convulsed in a bizarre national uproar over RTE’s highest paid star being allegedly bunged money ‘off the books’; a scandal so serious that it led to the Director General of RTE being suspended while investigations are carried out. 

Yet while these various issues dominate the papers and the airwaves, the really important issue of freedom of expression has been largely ignored. 

In recent weeks, the Seanad (Ireland’s Upper House) has been busy ratifying the utterly draconian Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate offences) Bill. 

Many of us have looked on with growing horror at the UK’s laws against free speech, which have seen mediocre comedians investigated for making a lame joke, or a Celtic fan having his collar felt by the police because he mocked the late Captain Tom Moore.