[jimlongton]

The bill has been criticised by representations of the UN Human Rights Commission and TDs from different political parties.

As an Irish person I find it infuriating that the Irish Council for Civil Liberties would approve of a bill which criminalises even unintentional "hate" speech with up to 5 years imprisonment but fails to even define what "hatred" is. The bill can't even coherently define the protected groups like 'gender' either.

It is all but guaranteed to be misused to target journalists and political dissent. We are likely to see Sinn Fein take power in some capacity soon. With laws like this soon to be on the books I think people have every right to be worried.

[lucideer]

I hadn't heard of the representation from the UN so I Googled it but all I could find was an article about them praising it[0] - do you have a link to the criticisms?

As for politicians opposing a bill, this seems... unsurprising. There's generally politicians on all sides of any given bill. It passed relatively easily so they were clearly in a small minority.

Fwiw this bill was widely supported by many opposition parties - so not something that's been forced through by a ruling party majority.

All said your doomsaying around SF coming to power alongside the scare quotes around the word "gender" give me a fairly strong indication that your own political perspectives likely align with the intolerant minority of politicians who opposed this.

[0] https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/07/dialogue-ire...