Following confirmation from the Justice Minister, Helen McEntee, that the proposed incitement to hatred elements of the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022 (the "Bill") would be removed, the necessary amendments were introduced and the revised Bill has now been signed into law.
As discussed in our previous insight, the initial wording of the draft Bill sought to repeal the current hate speech offence in the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act 1989 (the "1989 Act") and replace that with various new offences, namely:
(i) incitement to violence or hatred on account of certain defined protected characteristics;
(ii) condonation, denial or gross trivialisation of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace; and
(iii) preparing or possessing material likely to incite violence or hatred on account of protected characteristics.
Provision was also made in the initial draft of the Bill for corporate liability where an offence is committed for the benefit of a corporate body and its commission was "attributable to the failure, by a director, manager, secretary or other officer of the body corporate, or a person purporting to act in that capacity, to exercise... the requisite degree of supervision or control" of the person who committed the offence (section 13 of the Bill).
Although the Bill, including all of these aspects, was voted through its final stage in the Dáil Eireann in April of last year (with 110 TDs voting in favour and only 14 against), the political consensus and agreement needed for the legislation to continue its progression in that form through the Oireachtas was not achieved. In particular, there are concerns that the definition of "hatred" under section 2(1) of the Bill as meaning "hatred against a person or a group of persons in the State or elsewhere on account of their protected characteristics or any one of those characteristics" is neither sufficiently clear nor unambiguous. Other criticism includes the lack of a definition of "incitement" under the Bill.
Committee stage amendments to remove the proposed incitement to hatred aspects of the Bill were introduced earlier this month, leaving just the hate crime elements of the Bill, namely provision for certain offences aggravated by hatred, to proceed. The Bill, now renamed as the Criminal Justice (Hate Offences) Bill 2022, completed its journey through the Oireachtas on 23 October 2024 and was signed into law by the President on 29 October 2024.
The amendments made to the Bill mean that the 1989 Act remains in force. Minister McEntee, in welcoming the passage of the Bill, has restated her intention to update the 1989 Act to deal with incitement to hatred offences. We will continue to monitor for any developments in that regard and provide further updates in due course.
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