A Maynooth academic has claimed that “far right groups” conducted an “orchestrated campaign” to “say no” to the government’s planned hate-crime legislation.
Dr Seamus Taylor, Head of the Department of Applied Social Studies in Maynooth University, made the claims whilst appearing on RTÉ Prime Time on Thursday night last week.
He appears to have been responding to a prompt pointing out that, as revealed by Gript, over 70% of the public responses to the public consultation on the hate crime legislation had been opposed to the legislation.
Dr Taylor made three distinct claims.
Firstly, he said that “what has become evident is that those were orchestrated responses”; secondly, that “many” of the responses came from outside Ireland; and thirdly, that the “deliberate orchestrated campaign to say no to the legislation” would “seem to indicate that far right groups were prompting those responses.”
Dr Taylor also told RTÉ that the proposed law would not unduly restrict civil liberties as Ireland has “sensible law enforcement agencies” and that Dr Taylor “cannot see either of those law enforcement agencies making what would be an unjustifiable decision to prosecute when someone has material for wholly legitimate reasons.”
Dr Taylor added that we should not be “delaying this [the legislation] unduly” and that “law is never perfect, law can always be improved, but in my view sometimes good is good enough.”
The Prime Time broadcast did not challenge Dr Taylor’s claims, nor was Dr Taylor asked to provide any evidence to back up his statements.
A report released by the Department of Justice, following the conclusion of the consultation, does note that 21% of the responses received during the consultation came from outside Ireland, with 10% coming from the UK, but that report makes no mention of the far-right, and it is unclear what evidence Dr Taylor is using to justify his claim that either an orchestrated campaign against the bill occurred or that such a campaign, if it existed, would necessarily have been the result of far-right groups.
Dr Taylor was more supportive of the workshop strand of the consultation, which consisted of seven workshops organised by the Department of Justice. This branch of the consultation had, he said, found “strong support for this legislation.”
However, Ben Scallan recently wrote in Gript that: “Virtually all of the government’s workshops during the “consultation process” were organised, overseen and attended by State-funded NGOs, Department officials, and self-described activists, almost all of whom are publicly on record as saying they support hate speech laws before the exercise began.”
Whilst it was not mentioned during the broadcast, Dr Taylor did himself submit a submission to the consultation. In that submission, Dr Taylor said that he “fully” recognised and subscribed to the “bedrock value of free speech” but that he “equally” recognised and subscribed to the position that “free speech cannot and should not be an absolute right.” Dr Taylor stated that he supported “curbing” speech which “incites hatred” and “potentially undermines social cohesion and good relations in society.”
Dr Taylor also stated in that submission that he considered “the requirement that an offence must be intended or likely to stir up hate” contributed to the 1989 Incitement to Hatred Act “being less effective.”
RTÉ, when asked if they felt it was appropriate to let an individual make claims which seemed to undermine the legitimacy of a public consultation on a legislative matter of sincere public interest without requesting that statements of fact be backed by evidence, told Gript that: “We interview individuals because of their expertise in the field and we accept their credentials to speak to the subjects in hand. Dr. Taylor is a respected academic in this area and it was in this context we interviewed him.”
RTÉ further said that Dr Taylor’s “assertion” was challenged by Senator McDowell who told RTÉ “it isn’t just a crowd of mad right-wing xenophobes who are concerned about this legislation.”
When it was put to RTÉ that Senator McDowell’s comment had not served to challenge Dr Taylor, as Dr Taylor had made multiple claims of fact, not opinion, RTÉ told Gript that “there was a variety of opinion on the programme”, and that they had no further comment.
Dr Taylor did not response to our initial queries, and a follow-on email received an automated response saying that he was conducting work outside of the country and would not see any emails sent to him.
We will update this article should be receive a relevant response from Dr Taylor in the future.