“Cowardice” that government didn’t pass Hate Speech Bill, says Ward

Fine Gael TD Barry Ward has said that it was “cowardice” that the last Dáil did not pass hate speech legislation in the last Dáil.

Pushed by Fine Gael in the last Dáil term, but was watered down after backlash from conservative figures at home and abroad.

The proposed legislation, which looked to punish “incitement to violence or hatred and looked to beef up the legal recognition of hatred in the criminal justice system. 

Then-Minister for Justice Helen McEntee dropped the proposed legislation in September 2024 after admitting there was no government consensus on the issue.

That particular component was eventually dropped from what became the Criminal Justice (Hate Offences) Act 2024.

Twitter owner Elon Musk was a vocal critic of the proposed legislation, claiming on multiple occasions that the legislation was an “infringement” on free speech.

Veteran conservative Senator Michael McDowell was also a vocal critic of the legislation, saying that the legal framework for the legislation was lacking and did not have a clear or consistent definition of what constituted “hate speech.”

Since September 2024, however, and the re-election of Donald Trump in the United States, social media companies have gutted content standards and moderation staff at social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

In January 2025, prior to Trump’s second inauguration, Facebook announced it was loosening restrictions surrounding hateful content, with The Guardian reporting that while it was once a punishable offence to refer to a member of the LGBTQIA+ as being “mentally ill”, users are now allowed to use that particular phrase on the platform.

Ward said that the government should reconsider the law it passed in 2024, to have it reflect modern standards.

The Dún Laoghaire TD noted, “there was hate speech legislation before the previous Dáil with a view to changing the law and updating the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act, which was so ineptly phrased that only 50-odd prosecutions have been taken under it.”

“You would like to think that in a modern Ireland, people who are LGBT or who present with a different gender identity would be safe from incitement to hatred and incitement to violence, but they are not.”

The Fine Gael TD told the Dáil that a member of his office was abused in Dublin recently because of her sexual orientation.

“You would think that in 21st-century Ireland we would have moved beyond such absolutely craven nonsense, but the reality is that it is still happening.”

Ward said it was “political cowardice” that the original iteration of the Hate Speech Bill was not passed in the last Dáil.

During the last Dáil term, Sinn Féin were initially supportive of the legislation, but did a U-turn on it; the opposition to the legislation, analysts note, was the start of Sinn Féin’s decline in the polls from their mid-2022 high as the party attempted, unsuccessfully, to appeal to social conservative voters.

“It shows a certain political cowardice on the part of these Houses that we cannot address this issue, which we know exists, and put in place measures that protect not just LGBT people but anybody from a set of vulnerable groups listed in the legislation,” he said.

“The fact that we cannot do that is a really poor reflection on the ability of this House to enforce laws that make a difference to people’s quality of life; that is what it is really about.”

Ward said, “it is about the notion that members of the LGBT community or any other minority or vulnerable community would be entitled to enjoy their lives and have space to go about their business, their social lives, and their work lives where they live with exactly the same entitlement to peaceable enjoyment as I or anybody else in the county has.”

He said that the issue of banning conversion therapy has been “left on the table” and “we have not dealt with them.”

“The time has come to deal with them. Let us ban conversion therapies and get to grips with hate speech and actions which incite violence and hatred against people once and for all, so that everyone can feel safe and included.”