The Justice Minister said she will look at how she can address some concerns about hate speech legislation, but said there has been a lot of “misinformation” about the Bill.
Helen McEntee said she accepts people have “valid concerns” about the Bill, but said the legislative intent is not to criminalise people’s opinions.
There has been some political opposition to the Bill, particularly in the Seanad, where senators have questioned whether it would have a chilling effect on free speech and asked for a definition of the word “hate”.
Ms McEntee has also faced opposition from within her own party over the Bill.
Former justice minister Charlie Flanagan said it should be “brought back to the drawing board”, while Fine Gael TD Michael Ring called for the Government to abandon the Bill.#
Mr Flanagan said that lawmakers must provide definitions of wording in the legislation, including “hate” and “gender”.
The Fine Gael TD said there is a “lack of definition and clarity” in the current Bill, claiming it was handing law-making powers to the courts.
“Judicial activism not a good basis of law-making. Fundamental role of legislature is to make clearly understood laws. Courts then apply these laws,” he said on social media platform, X.
Meanwhile, Fianna Fail TD Willie O’Dea described the legislation as “woke”, and called for it to be abandoned.
Sinn Fein’s spokesman for justice Pa Daly has also called for the Bill to be ditched entirely, saying it was “badly thought through and is not fit for purpose”, despite the party voting the Bill through the Dail last April.
Ms McEntee said: “Our party and our government has always been a broad church of views and ideas. I think there’s a lot of misinformation. I think people think what’s being talked about is criminalising people’s opinions, which is not the case here.
“My job as Minister for Justice is to make sure that people who commit crimes that they serve the appropriate sentences, and that in turn protects vulnerable people.”
Ms McEntee said that other countries which have enacted hate speech laws have not led to people being locked up “en masse”.
“This idea that people’s opinions are going to be criminalised, it’s not true. It hasn’t transpired in other countries,” she told RTE Morning Ireland.
“It hasn’t transpired here and we’ve actually had hate speech laws since 1989. What’s been proposed is to update them, but I absolutely accept that people have valid concerns around freedom of speech, making sure that we’re not criminalising opinions.
“I’ve been taking those on board and I absolutely intend to progress and to look at how we can address some of those concerns.
“But again, this is about making sure where people are committing crimes that there is a punishment there for them and I think everybody agrees with that objective.”