“Now a certainty that Government will genuflect to EU liberal orthodoxies regarding hate speech.” Ken O’Flynn

Independent Ireland TD Ken O’Flynn has said his fears regarding the Government’s unwillingness to push back against the further erosion of free speech have increased, rather than been allayed following his interaction on the matter with Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe during Leaders Question in the Dáil.

The Cork North-Central TD was speaking after he highlighted the European Commission’s notification that Ireland is now subject to infringement proceedings for non-compliance with a Council Framework Decision from 2008 on combating racism and xenophobia by criminal laws. Failure to comply within a two-month period could see Ireland hauled before the EU courts

“What we are witnessing from the Commission is ideological coercion of the worst kind because it touches upon matters of fundamental importance to the free exercise of thought and speech. To my mind the EU institutions and its coterie of NGO’s who insist that all speech must only travel upon the rail lines they permit are the kind of omnipotent moral busybodies that CS Lewis once warned us against.”

“What is deeply troubling to me however is that minister Donohoe, while offering tepid words of comfort around respect for our Constitutional rights, spent most of his response to me championing the endless virtues of the EU and the apparent purity of its legal judgements in this area.”

“This signals to me that Government will certainly cave in and genuflect to the grievance merchants who want to stifle free expression under the guise of protecting us from so-called hate speech; which is speech that continues to go substantively undefined within our own legislation and which also depends on a form of circular reasoning that is ludicrous.”

“I have no confidence that minister Donohoe’s assertion that any further legislation in this area on foot of the EU Commission’s notification will be ‘proportionate’ for the very simple reason that the concept of proportionality that his Government and the EU operate under is vastly weighted against what ordinary people consider to be robust and free expression.”

“I would also say that very many politicians have become so comfortable or used to the idea of parliamentary privilege that they have lost touched with the fear that exists among those outside the political bubble who do not have the luxury of such defences to fall back on when it comes to their own speech.”