Hate Speech Bill Petition P00022/23 Update 2

Keeping ye up to date with what is happening

Correspondence received 27/03/2024

JCPP reference: JCPP-i-2024-498

P00022/23. “Supreme Court referral of the Incitement to Hatred Bill 2022”.

Dear Mr Delaney,

We are writing to inform you that your petition was discussed during the meetings of the Joint Committee on Public Petitions and the Ombudsmen on 20 & 21 March 2024. During these meetings, the Committee agreed that:

• The correspondence from the petitioner be forwarded to the Department of Justice for comment within 14 days.

• The petitioner be informed to lobby all Senators as the bill is still in the Seanad for approval. Amendments can be made at this point before it goes back to the Dáil for signoff.

 Further to your email requesting to change the title and text of the above petition, the Committee agreed that it is not possible to change the title and text of the petition at this stage as it has gone too far to be changed. Probably best to submit a new petition but it should be moderated.

Kind regards,

Alex.

My response:

To Whom it may concern,

An important clarification:

The Committee chair TD Martin Browne was in the middle of reading out the updated correspondence before they were interrupted by a contribution from Senator Craughwell which led to the committee addressing only the initial submission and not the updated correspondence that was left unread. This correspondence was submitted before the petition was heard. I feel that the committee members were not made aware of the correspondence accordingly. In this case, this failure to read out the full correspondence of the petition has lead to the decision to consider this stage of the petition to be too late to change, when in fact it could have easily been addressed before the committee heard the petition, or indeed while it was in session. 

In light of this we will refuse your offer of proceeding with the initial wording against our will and insist instead that the committee calls the organisers of the petition before them to address the full correspondence that was submitted before the meeting commenced. It is our view that we have been disadvantaged by a failure on behalf of the chair to bring this to light in session. This is viewable on the recording of the committee itself where the chair made reference to the correspondence. It is clear the chair was about to read out this correspondence but entertained an interjection that removed fundamental context and failed to come back to it. This is a gross misrepresentation of our position however accidental it may have been.

To submit this correspondence again as a new petition would disadvantage the petitioners by way of removing the window of opportunity in relation to the presumed imminent passing of the bill. It is also true that if we follow the advice of the committee and wait till the Seanad makes amendments, we will be expected to submit a petition again and reach the committee with this petition within the timeframe of the bill passing and the president signing the bill. At best this gives the people 7 days to initiate such a petition and have it heard. A mathematical impossibility.

It would be a fair concession to allow the petition to come back before the committee and for the correspondence that wasn't addressed to be spoken on by the committee members, if even just a small mention or clarification.

Regards
Stephen

I have serious issues with how the petition has been treated by the Oireachtas. It looks like they are acting to protect the prospect of a version of the bill passing with Amendments. I will go into this in detail tomorrow.