‘No One Wants These Laws’: Ireland to Jail ‘Hate Speech’ Offenders for Up to Five Years

Three Garda officers seen in a busy Grafton Street in Dublin city center. On Wednesday, 07
Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Peter Caddle

Those who use so-called “hate speech” will soon be jailed for up to five years under new legislation published on Thursday.

Any individual found guilty of using “hate speech” in Ireland will soon find themselves facing up to five years in jail. The country’s Justice Minister, Helen McEntee, has been at the centre of the country’s push towards implementing effective “hate speech” legislation, with her department announcing on Thursday that the first draft of the new laws would soon enter the country’s parliament.

Under the rules as proposed, those found guilty of “any intentional or reckless communication or behaviour that is likely to incite violence or hatred against a person or persons because they are associated with a protected characteristic” would face up to five years in jail.

What’s more, any individual convicted of such an offence would be branded a “hate criminal”, a label which the minister says is designed to “follow an offender in court, in garda vetting, and so on”.

“[H]ate speech is not about free speech,” McEntee declared in a statement published by her department.

“Hate speech is designed to shut people down, to shut them up, to make them afraid to say who they are and to exclude and isolate them,” she continued. “There is nothing free about that, and there is, frankly, no place for it in our society.”

The announcement that the current Irish government — which is now considerably unpopular in the wake of its chronic mishandling of the ongoing cost of living, housing, and migrant crises — now aims to implement hate speech legislation as soon as by the end of this year has angered many, who have accused the ruling coalition of trying to silence critics.

Speaking to Breitbart Europe, a representative from Free Speech Ireland said that the Irish public was largely against the implementation of such legislation, and that the move would almost certainly strain policed resources in the country.

“No one in Ireland asked for these laws except for elite NGOs,” the spokesman said, telling this publication that the new laws would almost certainly restrict freedom of speech in the country.

“As recently as 2018 the Irish public affirmed the right to free speech in the Blasphemy Referendum,” they continued. “This government is seeking to restrict the speech of voters while members of [parliament] would have special protections for their own freedom of speech.”

“There would be different laws for different people – ‘protected’ groups and unprotected ones, politicians and ordinary people,” they went on to say. “We know discontent is on the rise. At a time when [police] resources are at the brink, our political elite is looking to utilise such limited resources to silence people.”

The notion that police could be weaponised against those who question progressive politics is not without precedent, with equivalent “hate speech” laws in neighbouring Britain now having repeatedly seen individual members of the general public arrested and hauled in front of courtrooms for questioning issues such as transgenderism.

“I’ve been confronted three times by police on the orders of online trolls,” Graham Linehan, the famous Irish TV writer responsible for Father Ted and The IT Crowd, previously told Breitbart in regard to such anti-free speech legislation.

“The police in the UK have been acting on behalf of what is essentially a criminal gang of misogynists and conmen who use muddled laws to avoid scrutiny and criticism,” he went on to say, describing how “embarrassed” UK law enforcement have been whenever they have been forced to act against him due to the country’s “hate speech” laws.

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