An Garda Síochána and the Department of Justice have refused to confirm a claim made by the Minister for Justice that an absence of incitement to violence legislation is inhibiting the ability of the police force to do its job effectively.
Justice Minister Helen McEntee, in response to a question by Gript reporter Ben Scallan, said she had been informed by the police force that a lack of laws covering incitement to violence was inhibiting the ability of the Gardai to do its job effectively.
Both the Department of Justice and An Garda Síochána have refused to confirm the Minister’s claims.
Minister McEntee previously defended the Hate Speech Bill, claiming that Ireland has no incitement to violence legislation at present.
Reporter Ben Scallan challenged the Minister on whether she would be concerned about the “vagueness” of the Hate Speech legislation and how it could be interpreted, she said there was a need for the legislation. He also challenged the Minister on her claim that there is currently no incitement to violence legislation in Ireland.
“What I’m saying is that we don’t have incitement to violence legislation,” Minister McEntee told Gript, adding:
“The Gardai are telling me that that is prohibiting them in actually doing their job effectively.”
Claiming that there is no legislation in place to deal with incitement to violence, she added:
“We also don’t have incitement to violence legislation, so this isn’t new; this isn’t radical. The ‘89 Act already has incitement to hatred legislation. Hate is not defined, but that is not the problem with the legislation. The legislation is not workable for different reasons, and that is why we are updating it here.
“We don’t have Hate Crime legislation; what we do have is incitement to hatred legislation but it’s not updated. It doesn’t take into account the fact that we live in a digital world,” the Minister claimed.
“So, we are behind. We are laggards when it comes to protecting those that are most vulnerable in our society. There are people in this country who are not safe because of the actions of others, and if we do not update this legislation, I believe that we are letting them down.”
Defending her hate speech bill, Justice Minister Helen McEntee repeatedly claimed that Ireland currently has no laws prohibiting incitement to violence.@Ben_Scallan asks if this means it's currently legal in Ireland to call for violence against individuals and groups. pic.twitter.com/ZT7WMb9lnj
— gript (@griptmedia) March 27, 2024
Gript asked An Garda Síochána to confirm whether incitement is currently a crime in Ireland, and if it was the position of the force that the lack of incitement to violence legislation is inhibiting the ability of the force to do its job effectively.
We also asked a spokesperson to confirm if it is the position of the force that the lack of hate crime legislation, more generally, is inhibiting the ability of the force to do its job effectively.
However, An Garda Síochána refused to answer whether the Minister’s description of their position was correct.
In a statement, a spokesperson said: “The Garda Commissioner is on record as highlighting the need for specific Hate Crime Legislation to assist An Garda Síochána in its statutory remit as provided under section 7 An Garda Síochána Act 2005, as amended.
“The specific detail of any legislation is a matter for the lead Government Department and the Legislature.”
“An Garda Síochána does not provide legal advice or interpretations to any 3rd party,” the force added.
An Garda Síochána, when pressed for confirmation, said it had no further comment on the enquiry.
The Department of Justice were also asked to confirm whether it was correct to say that, whilst there is no legislation explicitly laying out the offence of incitement, incitement to violence, and incitement to induce another to commit a crime, is widely recognised in common law and is, on that basis, already a crime in this country.
In addition, we asked the Minister to provide further detail of what An Garda Siochana said to her regarding incitement, who made those statements, and when they were made. This publication also asked what practical different the department believed it would make if incitement to violence was codified into the legislation versus the current scenario.
In response, a spokesperson for the Department of Justice said:
“Full transposition of European Council Framework Decision 2008/913/JHA of 28 November 2008 on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law is one of the key objectives of the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Hatred or Violence and Hate Offences) Bill 2022. It is a requirement under EU law that Ireland criminalises intentional incitement to violence or hatred against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin.
“The proposed legislation will also update the provisions of existing laws which already criminalise extreme hate speech – the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act 1989 – to reflect the online context in which people now communicate and to ensure the legislation is more effective.
“The Garda Commissioner is on record as highlighting the need for specific Hate Crime Legislation to assist An Garda Síochána in its statutory remit as provided under section 7 An Garda Síochána Act 2005, as amended.”
However, the Department refused to confirm claims that the lack of incitement to violence legislation was interfering with the work of the gardai.
While both statements provided by An Garda Siochana and the Department of Justice referenced incitement to hatred, neither commented on incitement to violence or crime.
Minister McEntee also said in the exchange in question that the Hate Speech legislation formed an “important programme for government.”
“As Minister for Justice, I will always listen to the Gardai, and what they are telling me right now is that we do not have adequate legislation to deal with Hate Crime and to deal with incitement to hatred,” she said during the press conference.
“Other member states – as I said, we are the only country to not have hate crime and incitement to hatred legislation. No other member state defines hate. No other member state defines the word that they use where they replace it with a different word other than hate. And the sky has not fallen down.
“So the suggestion here that this is radical, that this is vague, this has been in law since 1989 and there has never been a challenge or a problem with defining hate in this legislation.”
“We are the last country in Europe to have Hate Crime legislation. We are the last country in Europe to update our incitement legislation, which is already there, and dates back to 1989, but doesn’t take into account the fact that we now live in a digital world,” she said.
In response, former Attorney General and former Justice Minister, Senator Michael McDowell, said that the claim was not true, adding that incitement to crime is, and of itself, a crime. Senator McDowell told Gript’s Ben Scallan that incitement to violence is “age old.”
The 1994 Public Order Act says, “it shall be an offence for any person in a public place to distribute or display any writing, sign or visible representation which is threatening, abusive, insulting or obscene with intent to provoke a breach of the peace or being reckless as to whether a breach of the peace may be occasioned.”
The Criminal Procedure Act of 2010 (Section 5 (1) (D)) also says it is an offence to incite violence or the threat of violence to a person.
Campaign group Free Speech Ireland, commenting at the time, said it was “extremely worrying that the Minister responsible for the Hate Speech Bill backs the most basic knowledge of Irish criminal law,” saying the claim was “incorrect.”