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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 2 Mar 1989

Vol. 387 No. 9

Prohibition of Incitement to Racial, Religious or National Hatred Bill, 1988 [Seanad]: Second Stage.

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time".

The object of this Bill is to remove one of the two obstacles in the way of ratification of the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by this country. The Bill does this by providing that it will be an offence to incite to hatred on account of race, colour, nationality, religion or ethnic or national origins. The other legislative measure required is one to provide that sentence of death may not be imposed for crimes committed by persons under 18 years of age. This is provided for in the Child Care Bill which is not before the House. Accordingly, as soon as the present Bill and the Child Care Bill become law, the way will be clear for this country to ratify the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

As I have said, the object of the Bill is to enable ratification of the United Nations covenent. However, the creation of a new category of criminal offence deserves to be considered carefully on general grounds having regard, in particular, to the constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression. I will come back to that point later, when I deal more fully with the statutory offences now provided for in the Bill. Before that I will briefly outline the evolution of this Bill both in international and domestic terms.

As Deputies will be aware, 1988 was the 40th anniversary of the adoption by the General Assembly of the United Nations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Preamble to this historic document recognised that respect for the inalienable rights of the individual was the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. In adopting the declaration, the United Nations set forth the ideals for which the world community should strive. These emerged in the aftermath of the horror, death and devastation of the Second World War and indicated that there was a new political will among the world community to secure lasting peace for mankind and to protect the individual from the scourge of dictatorship and oppression. Even before the Universal Declaration, in the Charter of the United Nations, signed in 1945, member states reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, disregard of which had resulted in barbarous acts that outraged the conscience of mankind.

The United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration were followed by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. In addition, in Europe, we have the European Convention on Human Rights which came into force in 1953.

Although it is now 41 years since the Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights was not adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations until 1966 and did not come into force until 1976. It was signed by this country in 1973. There has been some criticism here in Ireland of our delay in ratifying the covenant but, against that, I think it can be said that in general, this country has had a very good record on human rights. However, I am sure we all agree that ratification of the covenant by this country is a desirable objective, and one which I hope will soon be met, enabling us to meet our international obligations in this respect. We do not have the type of multi-racial society that some of our partners in Europe have. Nevertheless, we cannot close our eyes to the fact that the occasional problem of racial incitement does arise here. When it does, however, it is often due to localised ignorance and fear rather than to any general sense of intolerance or hatred towards people of other races or religions. In those circumstances, we have to be careful, in enacting legislation, while dealing with the few instances of incitement that arise in practice, not to create problems where none previously existed. We must also be ready to meet the argument that this legislation interferes with the right to free speech merely in order to placate sections of international opinion. On balance, I am happy that the legislation meets our international obligations and also meets our domestic needs within its limited objectives. In those circumstances, it is important that debate on the Bill, both inside and outside the House, should be moderate and balanced.

While in general we can trace the motivation for this Bill back as far as 1945 and the United Nations Charter, the actual provisions of the Bill are of more recent origin. In July 1983 an interdepartmental committee was set up, which was chaired from the Attorney General's Office, with terms of reference to examine Ireland's ratification of international covenants and conventions, and with particular reference to the area of human rights. The committee set about examining the two United Nations covenants — the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. The committee very quickly recognised that a proper examination of the convention would delay their examination of the covenants, so they decided to prepare a report on the covenants before proceeding to consider the racial discrimination convention and other international instruments. The Attorney General's committee are at present examining the International Convention on Racial Discrimination and, as they recognised, the necessary detailed consideration of that convention is a major job which will take some time to complete. I think the committee took the right decision in reporting separately on the covenants, which, I hope, will shortly be ratified.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 was regarded as a preliminary step in the area of human rights. It was recognised that there should be a more elaborate formulation of standards in instruments which would have legal force as treaties between the ratifying states. Thus, the two covenants were adopted and entered into force in 1976. The fundamental difference between the two covenants, and the reason two instruments rather than one were adopted, is that the objectives of the economic, social and cultural rights covenant are to be achieved progressively, whereas immediate compliance is required in relation to the civil and political rights covenant. Therefore, before this country can ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, we have to incorporate into our legislation any measures, not already covered in that legislation, which are necessary for compliance with the covenant. It would have been impracticable to attempt to incorporate the entire covenant into domestic law. The interdepartmental committee reported that it was unnecessary to do so, as most of its provisions are already covered here but, in any case, the covenant is expressed in terms which would not lend themselves to direct incorporation into Irish law.

As I have already said, two measures are required so that this country may ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. These were identified by the interdepartmental committee and are, first, the abolition of the death sentence for crimes committed by persons under 18 years of age and, second, the legislation now before us, which will give effect to the provision concerning incitement to hatred in Article 20, paragraph 2 of the covenant. As soon as these become law the way will be clear for this country to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It is intended also to ratify the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The interdepartmental committee concluded that no legislative action was necessary before the latter instrument was ratified by the State.

I will now briefly outline the main provisions of the Bill. Article 20, paragraph 2, of the covenant on civil and political rights reads as follows:

Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.

The Bill is intended to give effect to that provision. Deputies will notice that the definition of "hatred" at the end of sections 2, 3 and 4 of the Bill covers hatred against any group of persons on account of their colour or ethnic or national origin, or on grounds of their nationality, race or religion. It is desired to cover in this Bill also the corresponding requirement regarding incitement to racial hatred contained in Article 4 of the racial discrimination convention. The term "racial discrimination" in that convention has reference to "race, colour, national or ethnic origin". Accordingly, the terms used in the definition of "hatred" in the present Bill will not only suffice in the context of the covenant but will also be wide enough to cover the corresponding provision in the convention.

Section 2 is the central provision in the Bill. It is wide in scope and creates a new offence of publishing or distributing material, or using words or behaviour, or displaying written material, in a public place, or distributing, showing or playing a recording of visual images or sounds, where these are threatening, abusive or insulting and are intended, or are likely, to stir up hatred on the grounds specified in the Bill.

Section 3 carries the principle of section 2 into the area of broadcasting. It creates a new offence of inciting hatred by broadcasting visual images or sounds that are threatening, abusive or insulting if they are intended or likely to stir up such hatred. The definition of "broadcast" in section 1 will ensure that, for the purposes of this Bill, the transmission, relaying or distribution of visual images or sounds by means of wire or cable will be covered by the legislation. This is a long section, much of which is taken up with the provision of defences for persons involved in broadcasting, against whom proceedings might be taken under the section, and also with giving power to the Garda to require production of the relevant script or recording in appropriate cases.

Section 4 creates a new offence of preparing or possessing material or recordings of a racist or such like offensive nature to be distributed or broadcast in the State or elsewhere. This provison will make it possible to prosecute those who prepare racist material for distribution here or abroad, where the material is likely to stir up hatred against groups of persons here or in any other country. I am sure Deputies will be just as anxious as I am to ensure that this country will not be used in future for the preparation of offensive material for distribution either here or abroad. There have been instances of this type of activity in this country and up to now the Garda have not had the necessary powers to deal with it.

Sections 2, 3 and 4 are the three most important provisions in the Bill. A very important general question which arose when the Bill was being prepared was the relationship between its provisons and the right to free expression of convictions and opinions guaranteed in Article 40 of the Constitution. The right to freedom of expression is also guaranteed by Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights itself, and the question of the relationship between that provision and the prohibition of incitement to racial hatred in Article 20 was a live issue when the covenant was being prepared, as well as in the reviews of the working of the covenant by the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations which have taken place since then. The right to freedom of expression is not, of course, absolute.

Under the Constitution that right is guaranteed subject to public order and morality and this qualification also appears in Article 19 of the UN Covenant. I indicated earlier that it would not be practicable to incorporate the entire covenant as a Schedule to this Bill. The legislation now before us gives a good indication of this, since the exact wording of Article 20, paragrpah 2, of the covenant could not be incorporated directly into domestic law.

The interdepartmental committee were of the view that the simple creation of a criminal offence in the precise terms of this provision in the covenant would limit the honest expression of opinion in private and could make punishable a wide variety of utterances and publications which might not be considered serious enough to warrant criminal sanctions. They were of the view, also, that it might be thought undesirable to permit a situation where private prosecutions of a trivial nature could be brought. They thought, accordingly, that it might, on detailed examination, be considered desirable to qualify the covenant provision to some extent in the necessary legislation. That is why the provisions in sections 2, 3 and 4, while giving effect to Article 20, paragraph 2, of the covenant, do not do so in the precise terms of that Article.

The remainder of the Bill is largely consequential and related to the provisions in sections 2, 3 and 4 of the Bill. Accordingly, I will just briefly mention a number of these sections. Section 5 is a standard provision exempting reports of Oireachtas or court proceedings from the scope of the offences created by sections 2, 3 and 4. Section 7 also contains standard provisions, in this case regarding the liability of officers of corporate bodies when the body itself is guilty of an offence. It applies to all offences under the Bill.

Section 8 states that offences under sections 2, 3 and 4 may be instituted only by or with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions. It is intended to prevent trivial or mischievous private prosecutions and to ensure that prosecutions are brought only where the evidence is sufficient to justify the proceedings. Section 9 gives the Garda power, under warrant, to enter and search a premises where there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that offending material or recordings are being kept, and also gives the Garda power to seize any such material or recordings. Without these powers, some of the provisions of the Bill and, in particular section 4, would be difficult to enforce.

Section 10 gives the Garda Síochána powers of arrest for specified offences. These powers, also, are necessary to make the law enforceable. Subsection (1) of section 10 gives the Garda power of arrest, without warrant, where they reasonably suspect that a person has committed an offence under section 2 (1) (b) of using offensive words or behaviour, or displaying offensive written material, which are heard or seen by persons in a public place or at a public meeting. This type of offence has significance for public order and it is important that the Garda should be in a position to act immediately, without having to obtain a warrant, by arresting any person suspected of committing such an offence.

I might add here that the definition of "public meeting" and "public place" are quite wide in their scope. I am sure Deputies will agree that it would not be appropriate to attempt to curtail the free expression of opinions among small private groups, such as families. However, where groupings are larger, that situation would be covered by the definitions and this includes cases where people are present by invitation. Section 11 of the Bill gives the court power to order the forfeiture and destruction or disposal of offending material following a conviction under sections 2, 3 or 4.

To sum up, therefore, this Bill has the limited but clear objective of meeting the requirements of the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights regarding the prohibition of incitement to national, racial or religious hatred. In preparing the legislation we have borne in mind the corresponding provisions enacted in other countries. It is not meant to be a Bill on racial discrimination and will not in any way slow down the examination of what legislation, if any, will be necessary to enable this country to ratify the United Nations Convention on Racial Discrimination. That examination is continuing independently of the preparation of this Bill.

I commend the Bill to the House.

The Bill is to be welcomed and Fine Gael will not oppose it. We will support it on the grounds that it is desirable not only to ratify the Covenant as outlined by the Minister but on the Bill's own merits as far as we are proceeding with our own legislation here. It is somewhat sad that at the end of the speech the Minister said the Bill is not meant to be a Bill on racial discrimination. If that is the case he has missed an opportunity of bringing forward comprehensive legislation to this House on all aspects of racial discrimination which is long overdue and on which we have fallen behind other European countries.

The Minister has made it quite plain that he is bringing forward the legislation with a view to ratifying the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. I would not like to let the opportunity pass without referring to the 40th anniversary of the UN Charter on Human Rights which was celebrated throughout the free world on 10 December last. My colleague from Galway West in the Labour Party will agree that during an Amnesty International celebration in Galway it was noteworthy that there was no Government presence. I think I am right in saying there was no marking of this historic occasion by the Irish Government. That was sad. I have a feeling it was not officially recognised by the Irish Government because of some embarrassment that this legislation had not been enacted by that date. There is an onus on us as legislators to give particular praise and recognition to the marvellous work being undertaken by international groups, such as Amnesty International, operating here.

Article 20 of the Covenant as outlined in the Explanatory Memorandum mentions that "any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence" is to be outlawed, and that in effect is what this legislation does. It deals with race, nationality and religion, but it is narrow in its confines. There was an opportunity for the Minister to make reference in legislative form to our own minorities in this country.

The legislation should have been looked at in the broader sense of not ratifying the covenant, which we should have done many years ago. We signed it 20 years ago and we are ratifying it now. It is a little late. However, we must proceed with due haste. There is need for this legislation in its own right and as far as we as a society are concerned, it would be something of a misrepresentation if it was seen we were bringing forward legislation to prohibit incitement of racial, religious or national hatred simply to comply with an international covenant or declaration. We need the legislation in our own right in this State. We need it for a number of reasons, and I do not mean to highlight in an exaggerated fashion instances of what is happening in this country. Nevertheless, material of quite a despicable nature appears on our streets from time to time and is exported to continental countries. I am not overestimating the problem but I hope the Bill will address it adequately.

We do not have a multi-racial society but from time to time we have the appearance of right-wing groups of a rather despicable nature with fascist tendencies circulating documentation in Dublin and in rural areas. An instance in Kilkenny some time ago has not been given sufficient publicity. I hope that bodies such as the National Socialist Party will be brought out of their closets by this legislation and that the full rigours of the law will be brought to bear upon them.

I hope the legislation will cover the production of literature by extreme republican groups. For far too long in this city and other areas we have seen the spectacle of young people peddling extreme republican publications on Friday nights and at weekends in hostelries and pubs in order to earn some pin money. The peddling of this documentation should come under this legislation since it covers incitement to hatred both inside and outside the State. I hope it will have the effect of eliminating from Irish society the type of republican literature which is in some respects given official sanction.

In any discussion on minority groupings or groupings within society which tend to incite hatred or discrimination, I must refer to the work undertaken by the Joint Committee on Crime, Lawlessness and Vandalism during the last Dáil. I see no reason for not continuing this committee. While the committee did a lot of work in the crime and vandalism area they also addressed themselves on occasion to locating the distribution centres of literature of an extreme right-wing nature. I think the committee's final report was not published due to the intervention of a general election. I hope the Minister will consider at this late stage reappointing the committee, which did much good over the years. There is a great need for such a committee. The committee investigated incidents in Kilkenny where there was an extreme right-wing group and also investigated graffiti of an evil nature which appeared from time to time in Dublin.

I refer to a Dublin-based group called Harmony who have been campaigning for legislation of a comprehensive kind in relation to this matter. They are not widely known but their motives are such as to deserve our full support. Their primary objectives are to promote harmony, understanding and equality between all peoples in Ireland, irrespective of race, colour or national origin, to campaign for the introduction of a comprehensive race relations Act and subsequently to monitor the application of such an Act, and to collate and provide information, resources and materials for the promotion of a non-racist lifestyle.

Although we are not a multi-racial society there is a need to educate our children so that they will not develop racial prejudices. A very worth-while undertaking by Harmony was the organisation a year or two ago of a Christmas party for multi-racial families in Dublin which was visited by a white Santa Claus and a black Santa Claus. Little things like that ensure that our young people will not grow up with racial prejudices. With increased freedom of movement throughout the world and increased access after 1992, it is important that our young people should not be in any way discouraged from living with a multi-racial society. We must look to our own experience, especially the manner in which the Irish Paddy was treated in Britain in the forties and fifties. I am not saying that things are bad there now. We must ensure that our young people do not go abroad with any form of prejudice.

On the other side of the coin, we must ask whether this legislation is too restrictive. Are we denying people freedom of association and freedom of expression by outlawing incitement to racial, religious and national hatred? Are we coming into conflict with Bunreacht na hÉireann, particularly Article 40 thereof? The Irish Council for Civil Liberties did, I think, express their reservations about this legislation, if not officially then unofficially. I would not go along with that. An analogy was drawn with the topical Salman Rushdie book in that were a book to treat the Irish Catholic in the manner in which the Muslim is treated in Rushdie's book, perhaps it would be banned under this legislation. I am not so sure. We must legislate for the common good and I do not see any constitutional difficulty. The Minister is right to proceed with this Bill, weak though it may be. We are serving the common good by outlawing despicable and vile material.

Any discussion on this Bill which does not include reference to our own ethnic groups is weak and my main objection to the Bill is that it does not deal with the discrimination against our indigenous ethnic groups. It may be difficult to find a legal definition for our travelling community but we must address the problem of discrimination against them and the time to do that is now. If we do not, we will be doing them a great disservice.

The Minister told us it was his intention to produce a comprehensive Bill later but it is time he produced legislation to protect our minorities. The greatest ethnic minority we have are the 20,000 members of the travelling community. They must be protected by this legislation, and Fine Gael will be tabling amendments to do so on Committee Stage. We will be looking for support from the other Opposition parties for those amendments. The Government, between now and Committee Stage, should consider introducing appropriate amendments against incitement to hatred and discrimination against our travelling community. I do not think it will be difficult to find a legal definition for the travelling community. There was little difficulty in defining gypsies on the Continent.

The British House of Lords in 1975 considered the criteria for qualification as an ethnic group and put forward the following points in regard to the legal definition of a traveller. They were:

They see themselves and are seen by others as a distinct community.

They have a long, shared history of their own which can be traced back to the 12th century at least where they are mentioned in the laws.

They have their own cultural tradition associated with nomadism.

They have a small number of common ancestors and different families are associated with different counties.

They have their own language called Cant, Shelta or the Gammon. Some studies suggest that this language predates the Celts arrival in Ireland.

They have a common oral tradition rich in folklore.

The vast majority of travellers are Catholic and subscribe to popular form of religiosity.

They are a minority group which have experienced rejection, oppression and discrimination down through the years.

The Minister should consider those points and endeavour to include them in the legislation. It is possible to cater for the travelling people in the Bill under discussion.

I should like to refer to the 1986 ERSI report on travellers. The concluding remarks of the report are interesting. They are:

The circumstances of the Irish travelling people are intolerable. No humane and decent society, once made aware of such circumstances, could permit them to persist.

We have done little since the publication of that report to alter the views expressed in that report. It detailed the appalling living conditions of the travelling community and pointed out that 48 per cent of travellers have no piped water; 50 per cent have no toilet facilities; 54 per cent have no connection to public electricity supply; and only 5.5 per cent live to be over 50 years of age, compared to 23 per cent in the national population. That is an indication of the extent of the problem that must be addressed. It is sad that the Minister did not give the travelling community an opportunity to discuss with him this legislation before it was introduced.

I hope that between now and Committee Stage he will tease out with them the amendments I consider necessary if we are to outlaw the real discrimination that exists here against them. It is outrageous to think that we are signing an international covenant which amounts to window dressing while, at the same time, we are not doing anything to sort out the problems we have at home. It is fine to sign and ratify UN covenants but we must deal with the real problems in our State. We are ignoring the plight of the travellers and there has not been any reference to them in a Bill which carries the title Prohibition of Incitement to Racial, Religious or National Hatred. We must address the discrimination that takes place here and it would be a simple operation to include an amendment to cater for the travelling community in the Bill.

How do we rate our travellers? We are all aware of the common descriptions directed against the travelling community. We are told that they are alcoholic, dirty, lawless, dangerous, violent, disruptive and untrustworthy.

And pay no taxes.

That is another phrase used in connection with the travelling community. Those people are treated in a derogatory way. We must consider how they are treated in public houses, shops, hotels, dance halls, cinemas and theatres. I doubt if they would be permitted to enter our theatres because of a judgment that would be made on their appearance.

A health study on travellers showed an extraordinary high rate of infant mortality among that community. It is frightening to think that only 5.5 per cent of them live to be over 50 years of age and that less than 2 per cent of them exceed the age of 65. That is a damning indictment of the way we treat travellers. It is no harm to draw attention to the high rates of unemployment among the travelling community and it is sad to think that very few of them are in full time employment.

Does the Minister consider that the Bill goes far enough to permit us to ratify the UN convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination which was signed many years ago? I do not think it does. I understand the Minister indicated that more comprehensive legislation will have to be introduced before we can ratify that convention and that is sad. I wonder why it is not possible to produce a composite Bill that will permit us to ratify all the conventions we have signed. We should not lag behind in this regard.

Section 1 states:

"publish" means publish to the public or a section of the public and cognate words shall be construed accordingly;

I am worried about that provision in that it appears to let private gatherings off the hook entirely. The provisions of the Bill should outlaw the despicable literature that appears from time to time. Such literature is not distributed at public meetings and for that reason we must broaden the scope of section 1 to include private meetings. I realise that there is a difficulty as far as private activities are concerned but the provision will not prove adequate if it is confined to public meetings. I do not see any reference in section 2 to newspapers or television. Perhaps section 3 covers that, but I see no reason not to specify newspapers and the public media in section 2, as in section 3.

The Bill is really a very weak piece of legislation unless it includes references to the travelling community. I hope both sections 2 and 3 will be broadened to allow the definition of a traveller to be perhaps somebody of a substandard economic and social status. I hope that we can sit down on Committee Stage and thrash out a necessary amendment along the lines I have suggested. Section 3 will also have to be amended to include reference to the travelling community.

I welcome section 4 and the fact that there seems to be a shift in the onus of proof in so far as it will be presumed that a piece of literature was meant for publication unless the individual can prove otherwise.

I have a reservation with regard to section 8 and the fact that a private prosecution is ruled out. The Minister stated that it was for the common good that we should eliminate prosecutions of a vexatious nature. I am not sure if that is the right thing to do. I feel we have narrowed things too much by allowing proceedings only at the behest of or with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions. There is need to allow a broadening of that so that if private individuals feel they have a clear ground under this legislation they will be able to have an action thrashed out through the courts without having to have the consent of the DPP. We could be denying individuals the right to decide whether or not the legislation is applicable to them, or to any group, by not allowing them to proceed by way of private prosecution.

We will not be opposing the Bill but I feel the Minister missed a tremendous opportunity to update the legislation in this area by not allowing us to ratify a number of United Nations conventions and cater for active discriminatin within our own State. The Bill is all the weaker as a result. I hope that on Committee Stage, or certainly before the Bill leaves the Houses of the Oireachtas, we can enact a stronger piece of legislation to deal with the very many problems some of which I have addressed and some of which certainly need immediate Government attention.

I would like to say on behalf of the Progressive Democrats that we will also be supporting the passage of this Bill on Second Stage. We certainly appreciate the principles involved and support them. It cannot be denied that Ireland has given support to the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights over the years despite the fact that we have not ratified it and despite the fact that we have not been able to ratify this particular Convention on Civil Rights. The convention that it is hoped to ratify following the passage of this Bill, and also the provision in the Child Care Bill relating to the death penalty for under 18 year olds, should find echoes among those who support the democratic system of Government. It should be clear that Ireland is among those nations. I hope that we will also, as a House, recognise that free speech and free political association are available here so long as they are in relation to those who stand by democracy, who do not use methods that threaten that democracy itself. We are long overdue to ratify this convention. This convention was adopted in 1966 and we signed in 1973. I do not understand why it has taken us this long to get to the point of ratification. We missed an opportunity last year on the 40th anniversary of the declaration of human rights. While I understand the legislative process is a difficult and drawn out one, it surely does not need to take 16 years to be able to pass these two pieces of legislation.

The convention itself addresses civil and political rights. In this Bill one aspect of that is being dealt with, that is, the prohibition on racial discrimination. The Bill refers in its title to the prohibition of incitement to racial, religious or national hatred. I note that in the Seanad debate the Minister referred to the fact that it was desired to cover the corresponding requirement in article 4 of the Racial Discrimination Convention, and by that I presume he meant the wider convention to eliminate all racial discrimination. He hoped that this Bill would also cover the corresponding requirement prohibiting incitement to racial hatred and racial discrimination.

Therefore, at the outset I would say that the title to this Bill is inadequate because in the definition section and, in particular in sections 2, 3 and 4 which are the nub of the Bill, there is quite distinct reference to incitement to hatred on the basis of ethnic origins. It is not covered in the title and I think it should be. It would be very clear from that exactly what is meant. As the Minister said in the Seanad, it would go a long way towards covering the point he makes about the wider convention on racial discrimination. It has to be said that we have a fairly integrated society in the Republic; I would not extend that to the North. Nevertheless, despite the problems in the North and despite the spill over into the South we have, on the whole, an integrated society which does not divide on racial lines, and which does not find itself combating racial disturbance or hatred on a regular basis. We have found over the years that these difficulties have passed us by, by chance.

This Bill shows, on the one hand, our commitment to the terms of the convention, but it also protects us from the spread or possible extension of racial disharmony which is present in more and more of the states, for instance, of the EC. Immigrant workers all over the EC, who are coming in very larger numbers, find they are the subject of racial discrimination. It seems to me that we must always be vigilant to see that that is not tolerated in our society. I know it is something that, certainly outside Dublin, is almost unheard of but in Dublin there could easily be said to be reasonably unhealthy attitudes among some groups of people to the gathering of certain ethnic types or people of other races in particular areas in Dublin. I can think of some in the south inner city where there are gatherings of Muslim people, Indians and so on. There is a tendency on the part of some Dubliners to look on that as unhealthy. We must guard against an increase in that kind of feeling and against an increase in divisions in the community which would be based on that attitude. I see this Bill as a first step in that direction. Certainly it is a marker which the Government and the Oireachtas are setting down on how far we would allow that to go and indeed that we would not allow it to go any further.

Despite what I say about having a reasonably integrated community, we have our own problems. I would not in any way wish to deny the real problems of discrimination that exist. I am particularly thinking of the travelling community. Up to now they have not been recognised as being a separate group and therein lies their real difficulty and the difficulty for those who deal with them in authority, as neighbours and so on. It is unnecessary and inadvisable to pass a Bill through this House and through the Seanad that refers to incitement to hatred and does not refer to the real problems that exist in Ireland. It is quite unbelievable. I do not honestly think any other country would go about it in a slavish manner, which seems to be the Minister's approach to this Bill. He feels there is a requirement on this country to ratify the Convention on Civil and Political Rights, that there is a difficulty in relation to Article 20 of that Convention and that we will sort it out by passing this Bill but we will not relate the legislation to the Irish scene. That is a huge mistake. It brings this House into disrepute and reinforces the notion abroad that politicians in Ireland and their antics are irrelevant. It behoves us in this House to look at the real problems on the ground. If legislation is introduced to the House that enables us to deal with that in some way — I am not saying it will deal with it completely or that it will go a long way towards sorting out the problem — we should see how we can make that legislation relevant to Ireland today.

Travellers are an ethnic minority. I know that is not a view held by everybody in the country but it is coming to be accepted increasingly as people learn more about the travelling community. Under any definition of an ethnic minority they are quite clearly included. The mere fact that when speakers in this House refer to the travellers everybody knows exactly who they are talking about and who to exclude from the definition clearly indicates that they are an ethnic minority, that they are recognised as a different type of people who have a different culture, a different language and different way of life.

In a 1988 report from the National coOrdinator for the Education of Travellers, Sister Colette Dwyer, there is reference to prejudice and the reason 967 traveller families still live in appalling conditions. Sister Dwyer says that one of the reasons is the unwillingness of the majority of the settled community to accept the travellers as a group and give them a chance to show that if they were given basic amenities they would take pride in where they live, take part in the normal life of the community and educate their children. They would, therefore, be seen as full Irish citizens.

There is a view taken at present by a good number of Irish people that travellers do not deserve real citizenship, that they do not deserve real protection by the law and that they do not deserve to be treated the same way as those who are not travellers. Travellers are in an extremely small minority. We are talking about, as this report states, 967 families. There are many towns in Ireland with far more families than that, so it should not be an insuperable problem. It seems the problem at base is one of recognition of the fact that these people are different and should be allowed to be so.

This Bill particularly allows us to give ethnic minorities that recognition. I certainly will be pressing an amendment to that effect when we reach Committee Stage. I would be interested in support from other parties or perhaps discussions between the parties as to a joint approach, depending on what other parties' views are on Second Stage. This is a problem we cannot get away from. We must use the legislation before us to relate to the problems as they exist on the ground.

The Minister, in the Seanad debate and since then, has mentioned the danger of creating problems where none exist, the difficulty in perhaps alerting people to problems that do not exist. One thinks of the type of racial disharmony there is in, for instance, some areas in Britain such as Brixton and Toxteth and in parts of Germany where there is undoubtedly racial discrimination against minorities of different countries. Irish people simply turn away and say it is not their problem. They ask why we are passing legislation relating to racial discrimination when it has nothing to do with us. We must allow this Bill to reflect the view that there is a problem in society. There is a need for the Government and the Oireachtas to give a lead to put down a marker and say what society will or will not tolerate. We are given an opportunity, in this Convention which it is proposed to ratify to restate some of the values of a true Republic.

In this year of the bicentenary of the French Revolution we are more aware, and certainly becoming more and more so as the year goes on, of the underlying values and guarantees that a Republic gives to its citizens. In the French context these values are liberty, equality and fraternity. We know that since 1789 when the revolution took place in France there have been many conflicts in Europe and outside it which arose from discrimination of various kinds, whether they were between groups within one country or between neighbouring countries. We have seen world wars. We have seen imperialist, reactionary, totalitarian regimes threaten weaker States, weaker individuals and weaker groups within States. The antithesis of guaranteed freedoms in the United Nations Declaration and Convention on Human, Civil and Political Rights is that type of regime.

The French Revolution stands, particularly this year, as a marker for those states which have chosen the republican route, those states which have chosen to create a true republic to include for its citizens the guarantees I have mentioned. In this country that guarantee, of the liberty and equality of the citizen and fraternity, in the French terms, are not being applied particularly to the travelling community. We are not offering them the protection the State offers other groups. We are not offering them, as individuals and as a group, the rights the remainder of society takes for granted and expects the State to vindicate.

As the Minister has said, the general convention on the elimination of racial discrimination is being examined by an interdepartmental committee. This interdepartmental committee has been sitting for years and years. It cannot be so difficult a task that they find it impossible to suggest legislative changes which will bring the terms of that covenant into effect and allow us to ratify it. Political will is what it is all about. I suspect that recent Governments have been short on that quality. I would hope the Minister would encourage the Attorney General, the chairman of that committee, to make great strides to come up with the necessary reforms so that we can ratify that covenant.

As I said earlier, I believe the word "ethnic" should be included in the title of the Bill, as a result of which it would then be open to the House or the Minister to include other groups based on that term — ethnic origin — within the provisions of the Bill, or it would simply be very clear to those groups who wish to claim that they are being discriminated against, on the basis of their ethnic origin, to claim the protection of the provisions of this Bill. Unlike legislation in other countries, such as the Race Relations Bill in Britain, this is not the be-all and endall of anti-discrimination law. This Bill simply sets down markers. This is not a positive anti-discriminatory Bill. It prohibits certain acts, it prohibits the dissemination, preparation, publication and broadcasting of certain literature but it does not provide beyond that.

We know that the issues constantly causing problems for those discriminated against in our society can relate to housing, employment, to access to places of social activity, none of which is catered for under the provisions of this Bill. This Bill constitutes a very small step but, on account of the fact that none has been taken before, a major one. No marker can be put down by this House or by the Seanad to the effect that they stand foursquare against discrimination. I would ask the Minister to take very seriously my claim that there is a need for the inclusion of the word "ethnic" in the title of the Bill. I will be tabling an amendment later to that effect.

Some people have expressed fears that the provisions of the Bill are too restrictive, that there are people engaged in what they consider to be reasonable occupations, critical of other groups, and that they will be prevented from carrying out these occupations henceforth. I do not believe that is the case. The right to free speech is not an absolute one. It is circumscribed by the rights of society in general and the right of an individual to be protected by society. It seems to me that is the underlying approach taken in the drafting of this Bill. For example, it has not been decided simply to lift Article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and include it in legislation. It has been decided to incorporate it in some way in our legislative code so that it fits in with the guarantees of free speech and restricts the prohibition on access to public places. To a certain extent I would share Deputy Flanagan's concern that that could constitute a loophole in the future. Perhaps we should examine that on Committee Stage so that, for instance, private clubs would not mushroom to the extent that the kind of literature and seditious material about which we are talking would not simply move into the private rooms of private clubs but still be disseminated.

Generally the offences created in sections 2, 3 and 4 should cover the intended aim. I was somewhat concerned about the wording with regard to broadcasting, distribution, showing, playing or recording of visual images and sounds. We must be very careful that the wording of any section relating to broadcasting is sufficiently wide to include any development in technology because, undoubtedly, there are daily developments in that field. We know, from another Bill passed by this House recently — the Video Recordings Bill — that the technology in relation to videos is constantly changing. It need not necessarily be the case that a tape is used. The latest innovation is laser-operated recordings. Who knows, in five years, what will be the case. It is very important that we do not create loopholes that will obtain, say, six months or a year after the passage of this Bill if we narrow the definition too much.

The reference to preparation and possession of that type of material is extremely important because, without it, we would be unable to curtail recent material, which is and has been prepared in Dublin for a number of years, not for distribution here but elsewhere — anti-Semitic literature and publications, among others, which no right thinking person would allow past their door, indeed, no right thinking person in this State would tolerate being prepared here if they knew it was going on. To date somehow we have been unable to catch the culprits and prosecute them effectively.

The provisions of this Bill constitute a move absolutely in the right direction. It is unfortunate but, presumably, such people will simply move to another jurisdiction where the laws are looser. We must play our part and do what we can to stamp it out. There is a frightening increase in some developed countries to return to the kind of thinking and philosphies that underlay the Nazi régime in Germany in the thirties and forties. It is quite frightening to me to observe the numbers of young people particularly who are seduced by the arguments and philosophies put forward of this national socialism approach — boot boys would be the best way of describing many of the people associated with this kind of thinking. That is what people thought in Germany in the early thirties. That is why we must not allow any group in society to promote distinctly hateful literature or to speak in that way in public which entices immature young people to join the ranks of these completely intolerable and, I think, appallingly dangerous organisations.

Boot people.

I have not heard boot girls so described. The defences in the Bill are quite wide. In fact, I was surprised to see how wide they are. I know the Minister is very concerned that he should not be seen in any way to contravene the Constitution and the guarantee of freedom of speech. Therefore, the defences provided in the Bill have to allow for people to be able to prove that they had not intended the material to be abusive, insulting or threatening or, in fact, had not intended it for public display. I hope we will not find a number of loopholes which will allow people to escape prosecution. While I also understand the Minister's reluctance to allow private prosecutions, I hope this will not mean that it will be very difficult to initiate a prosecution. I trust that the Director of Public Prosecutions will be empowered and instructed to prosecute where reasonable complaints are made. I know he has to use his judgment to establish whether the complaints being made are frivolous, of a nuisance type, or caused by antagonism between people.

In order for this Bill to have a preventive effect, it is essential that it should be given life immediately after it is passed. The Director of Public Prosecutions should initiate prosecutions as soon as possible against those whom he knows at present are offending against the principles of the legislation.

In general, we support the Bill but we will be bringing forward amendments on Committee Stage. I hope there will be support not just from the Opposition benches but from all sides of the House for a recognition of the real problems that exist in Irish society and a willingness to deal with them. It is unlikely that in the next five to ten years we will get another opportunity of this type to deal with the existing problems on the ground and to give a lead to the community at large.

The Labour Party welcome the Bill as far as it goes and will support it on Second Stage. According to the Minister, the Bill was brought in in response to a United Nations convention. I often wonder why we have to wait for United Nations conventions or EC directives to bring about things that are right and proper. If there were no United Nations directive, would we ever have gotten around to bringing in a basic measure like this?

I deplore the fact that much of the legislation we introduce in this field and, indeed, in other fields is in response to directives that come from international bodies. This is entirely wrong and should not be so. We should be bringing in this measure primarily on its merits, because it is right and just and it is needed. Secondly, unfortunately this Bill is the absolute minimum required to comply with the United Nations convention. There is no reason on earth why the Minister needs to do this. Why should we adopt the minimalist approach to enable us to accede to the convention? Why can we not for once be a bit more radical and see what the broader needs might be and deal with them even though they might be beyond the basic minimum requirements in the United Nations convention?

There are many things that we need to do if we are to expand this field of law reform to anything like the degree that is necessary. The area of racial discrimination is not touched on at all in the Bill. This is a very crucial and important matter. I know the Minister said that a separate committee are working on this issue as it is more complex and will take longer and all that. That is all right as far as it goes, but it is not an answer. There is racial discrimination of various forms in this country. Perhaps it is not all that widespread but nevertheless it exists in the homogeneous society that we have. After all these years I wish it had been possible to bring in a comprehensive measure when we were dealing with it and cover the questions of racial hatred and discrimination which affect a number of people.

Deputy Flanagan referred to the organisation Harmony, and rightly so. I am proud to be a member of that organisation and I subscribe to their objectives and the needs of their members who are affected by racial discrimination. It might be a black person getting short shrift from a landlord when he wants to rent a premises or the response to him in shops. This organisation highlights many examples of how their members have been affected.

The Minister referred to the fact that we are a homogeneous society perhaps the most homogeneous in Europe. That is true. However, I do not think that is necessarily to our credit or to our advantage. I do not know why this should be so and whether it results from a policy on immigration to this country by refugees over the decades. While some refugees have been taken in from various sources on occasion — the boat people, for example — by and large I do not think our record is anything that we can be wildly proud of. To illustrate the point, I was at a Council of Europe meeting in Strasbourg a couple of weeks ago and an item which came up for discussion in the plenary session was the question of refugees from Iran and Iraq. Reference was made to the most appalling pressure and mayhem and to the executions of the Kurds and other minority groupings.

It was pointed out in reports that literally hundreds and thousands of these unfortunate people were driven out by the Iraqis and the Iranians. The overwhelming bulk of these refugees found themselves in Turkey. The European states represented in the Council of Europe were busy preparing reports criticising the Turks for not looking after these large numbers of refugees well enough. I thought this was an outrage because the record not just of this country but indeed of all the European countries in taking in refugees leaves a lot to be desired. I know that before the war there was no great rush by any of the European countries to take in Jewish refugees.

I referred in Strasbourg — and I will refer to it here — to an international conference held in Evian in about 1937-38 when the Nazis said: "we are not having the Jews but anybody willing to take them may take them". There were not very many takers in the European countries and those unfortunate people, my co-religionists, ended up in the gas ovens of Auschwitz, Belsen and so on. Some came to this country and many of those who came worked very hard at building up the country and made a very fine contribution to it.

To revert to the Turkish question and the very large numbers of refugees, running to hundreds of thousands, in the course of preparing the speech I made to that plenary session in Strasbourg, I asked the representative from the international parliamentary grouping, who was with us, to make contact with the Department of Foreign Affairs here to find out how many refugees we had taken in and the slightly surprising answer was that we had taken in none. That is a criticism not just of us but of many of the other countries of Europe some of whose representatives were busy in the plenary session and had some neck in criticising the Turks for not properly looking after the refugees. Some very wealthy countries in Europe were involved in that grouping.

I realise that the question of taking in refugees and people who are under pressure in other regimes poses problems for us in relation to unemployment and that it would accentuate our problems. That is a line of argument but in that context it frequently happens that refugees very often make a major contribution to the host country, they set up industries and build up employment and in fact make a contribution well in excess of what otherwise might have been expected. The whole issue is a sensitive one but we should open our minds and hearts to it just a little more than we do.

This Bill is welcome as far as it goes. There is no question but that it is needed. Previous speakers referred to the rash of material that has been printed in this country by Nazi-type organisations. I have seen some of this material going back over a number of years. It is absolutely foul material reminiscent of the worst excesses of Nazi Germany. The people who produce it use the Nazi emblems and all that sort of thing. The material is viciously anti-Semitic, anti-Black and so on. It has been printed here now for quite a number of years. Countless hundreds of copies of it must have been printed and disseminated, a small quantity within Ireland, but most of it for distribution abroad.

It is not a criticism just of this Government but of the previous Government too, that it has taken so long to produce this legislation. I would be the first to admit that. I made many requests to the previous Government to get on with such legislation. It has finally emerged now after this Government have been in office for two years. Apparently, it was not possible under existing legislation to suppress the kind of material we are talking of. I had a number of meetings with some senior Garda officers of the Special Branch to discuss the problem. They told me they knew exactly who was producing this horrific material and where it was being printed but that in the absence of this type of legislation there was nothing they could do about it. The meetings I had go back over three or four years and the material continued to be published during that time. Those Nazi organisations were using this country as their printing house for the most of western Europe. That is an appalling commentary and an absolute outrage. The Bill will certainly assist in dealing with that aspect.

There are two other aspects the Bill does not cover adequately. One of these has already been commented on at some length by Deputies Flanagan and Colley. I support everything they said on the issue of the travellers. The travellers have asked to be specifically mentioned in the Bill and they should be specifically mentioned. The Labour Party also will be tabling an amendment to make special provisions to cover travellers. Perhaps we could get together with the representatives of Fine Gael, the Progressive Democrats, the Labour Party and The Workers' Party, who I am sure would support it, and work out an acceptable joint amendment that will receive favourable consideration from the Minister having regard to the times that are in it.

The other group who were not referred to by previous speakers is the Gay community. They also seek a specific mention in the Bill. I read the speeches and comments made in the Seanad, particularly by Senator Norris. I support what he said. It is right and reasonable that people of homosexual orientation should be recognised, for protection purposes, as a group within the ambit of this Bill. The Minister was at pains to refute that and to say that it would be inappropriate to specifically mention the gay community and travellers in the Bill. I studied what the Minister said in the Seanad and I remain totally unconvinced by most of his arguments. One argument was that it would open up the floodgates, and that a whole series of groups would seek specific mention in the Bill. That is a poor point. So far as I know only those two groups have actually requested a specific mention in the Bill. If there was to be an opening of the floodgates it would have materialised by now and all political parties would have been lobbied. So far as the Labour Party are concerned we have received representations from two groupings only. If they feel it necessary and desirable in their interests to have a specific mention, I say their requests are reasonable and should be acceded to. These two groupings feel vulnerable and consider it necessary to seek the protection of the House by being specifically mentioned. I do not see that any harm will be done by mentioning them in the Bill.

There may be talk about difficulties in definition but I do not accept that. I agree with Deputy Colley that there is no need for major detailed definition of the word "travellers", for example. The Constitution refers, for example, to the Jewish communities. There was no great need then it was felt to go into any detailed or laborious definitions of who was a Jew, although in the State of Israel that very question has been a source of very major discussion and debate since that state was founded. It is a question that has never been satisfactorily resolved. I do not think we should get too hung up on the definition question. The court can determine the question of definition if it arises in court proceedings.

The Minister made a very strange comment on this question in the Seanad debate. He referred to the Mandla versus Lee case in the House of Lords in the Seanad on 30 November 1988 — Official Report, Volume 121, column 962. He referred there to the fact that the House of Lords had decided that the definition of “ethnic” was to be construed relatively widely in a broad cultural and historic sense. Indeed, the House of Lords, by their decision in that case did so decide. He went on to say that it would be quite desirable that it should be left to the courts to determine whether any particular grouping fell within an ethnic definition. The Minister went on to say he thought the Irish courts would likely follow the House of Lords decision by giving this wide definition to the word ethnic.

What the Minister said in connection with that case is correct as far as it goes but it is only half the truth. The other half of that particular story is that the court below the House of Lords, namely the Court of Appeal, also a very eminent court in the English jurisdiction, came to the directly opposite conclusion on the definition of the word "ethnic". The House of Lords overruled them in that same case and came to the opposite conclusion. The matter was dealt with by the Court of Appeal, and is referred to in the All England Law Reports 1982 at page 1109. That particular case, for the information of Deputies, concerned the question of the Sikhs, whoever they were, within the meaning of the English Race Relations Act. The Court of Appeal said that:

Since Sikhs were merely a distinct religious and cultural community to which anyone might belong, and who could not be distinguished from other peoples of the Punjab by reference to any racial characteristic, they were not, as Sikhs, a group of persons defined by reference to "ethnic or national origins" within s 3 (1) of the 1976 Act.

That is the English Race Relations Act, 1976.

It followed that they were not a racial group within s 1 (1)(b) of the 1976 Act and that it was not unlawful under the Act to discriminate against them.

The Court of Appeal decided that you could discriminate against the Sikhs and, indeed, the House of Lords overturned that. My point is that the Irish courts are not bound by English decisions of that period. They may look at them, they may be persuaded by them or they may not. They are just as likely to be persuaded by the Court of Appeal as they are by the House of Lords but they are not bound by them in any way.

Why leave it to be determined and decided by the courts whether travellers are an ethnic group or not or whether members of the gay community are a group within the meaning of the Act? Why leave it open to the courts and the lawyers to get busy increasing their fees at very great expense when we can settle the matter much cheaper, quicker and simpler here in this House when we are working on this Bill? I know the Minister is very anxious to advance and increase the earnings of the lawyers. He showed that by his response to the Judicial Separation and Family Law Reform Bill when he refused to allow district jurisdiction, which would have considerably cheapened the cost. His sole objective seems to be to provide substantially increased earnings for solicitors and barristers specialising in family law. Why leave it to the courts to decide when we can settle the matter now? This surely is the time to do it, to take it out of the ambit of the courts, to put it beyond legal argument and to settle it now, if that is what the House is minded to do.

It is regrettable that the question of racial discrimination is not being dealt with here today. There is a lot of talk about the people of this country being largely homogeneous. They may be in the ethnic sense, but there are certainly very wide disparities in the economic sense. This country is far from homogeneous in the economic or social sense. I have seen established statistics which show that 5 per cent of the population of Ireland own 70 per cent of the wealth. There is nothing very homogeneous about that.

I am concerned that other aspects of the Bill will not work very well or that the Bill will not be effective unless it is tightened up substantially by amendment on Committee Stage. The Bill is modelled largely on the British legislation which has been followed in the setting out of offences in sections 2, 3 and 4. I am surprised we followed the British legislation so slavishly, particularly basing proof of guilt on establishing what the intention of the person disseminating the literature was, when it must be known that the English legislation, based on that same premise, failed very badly. Many prosecutions in England have failed because of the difficulty in establishing what was the true intention of the person.

We all understand that it is very difficult to prove what is in a person's mind, or what their intention was. It is not something that can be established on evidence. By and large, if a person said he meant this, or he did not mean that, or he did not intend the other, that is not something that is easily proved or disproved in a court. We will have considerable difficulties in making prosecutions stick if we do not amend this legislation.

I want to refer to one English case to highlight the point where the question of intention was involved — the Race Relations Board versus the Associated Newspapers Group. Judgment was given on that matter on 1 March 1978 arising out of the English Act. An advertisement was inserted in one of the main English newspapers run by the Associated Newspapers Group advertising for nursing staff in a hospital in South Africa. Included in the advertisement were the words "all white patients". The Race Relations Board, who have responsibility for these matters in England, took the view, rightly, in my opinion, that the advertisement was discriminatory in that those words meant clearly that only white nurses would be employed in these jobs. They sought a declaration that the paper had acted contrary to section 6 of the Race Relations Act, 1976, by publishing an advertisement which could reasonably be understood to be an intention to discriminate. The court dismissed that claim saying they could not be satisfied that the intention of the newspaper was an act of discrimination. I think that is regrettable because the intention of the person under the prosecution becomes the critical factor in determining his or her guilt. Very substantial possiblities of defence are left open if we leave the Bill as it stands. The standard of proof that would be required to establish it under this Bill as drafted is altogether too high and should be changed.

There are a number of other possible defences that may be thrown up by the Bill if we leave it in its present form. I will refer to one which occurs to me and perhaps the Minister would have a look at it between now and Committee Stage. This deals with the position in relation to public meetings. I think Deputy Flanagan referred to this point already but I want to refer to a slightly different aspect of it. Section 2 (3) states that a public meeting means "a meeting at which the public are entitled to be present, on payment or otherwise and as of right or by virtue of an express or implied permission." I want to draw particular attention to the words "as a right". In other words, a public meeting is a meeting where the public can go "as of right". If, for argument's sake, a Nazi party call a meeting at some hotel on a Monday night but they say: "The organisers reserve the right to refuse admission" can we then say that members of the public may go to that meeting as of right? The organisers will say: "No, they cannot because we are reserving the right to refuse admission. Therefore, you can go into the meeting with our permission or we can stop you if we want to". That could be a way out of saying it is not a public meeting within the meaning of the Bill. It strikes me that way on a preliminary reading of the section and I would be interested to hear the Minister's comments on it.

I am a bit puzzled by the distinctions which are drawn in the various sections between material for dissemination in the State and material for dissemination outside the State. The offences defined in section 2 point out that hatred means "hatred against a group of persons in the State on account of their race, colour, nationality, religion or ethnic or national origins". I do not know why that definition is confined to hatred within the State. If material exists which advocates hatred of people on account of their race, colour, nationality, religion, or whatever, whether within the State or not, this should be regarded as an offence. Why limit this offence to material published within the State? If material is published about the blacks in South Africa, will that escape being regarded as an offence because it is not within the State? On the other hand, section 4 states that it will be an offence to be in possession of written material "in the State or elsewhere". I believe there should be no limitation in any of the sections confining this offence to material referring to people within the State.

The word we are concerned with in this Bill is "hatred" and the title of the Bill refers to the prohibition of incitement to hatred. Perhaps consideration should be given — and I would be interested to hear the Minister's comments on this — to broadening this somewhat. Material could be produced on a group of people, a religious or an ethnic group, which could ridicule them or hold them up to contempt without necessarily inciting hatred. We should also consider prohibiting that kind of activity.

The Labour Party will move amendments on Committee Stage dealing with the sexual orientation of people. I see that in the Seanad the Minister was very much against this. He made the point that not many of the other countries which have adopted the convention have made specific mention of groupings with a particular sexual orientation in their legislation. He pointed out that the only countries which have done so are some of the Scandinavian countries. I hold the Scandinavian countries in high regard. They have an advanced view of these matters and it would be good if we emulated the Scandinavian countries in this respect rather than those countries which did not feel it necessary to include a specific reference to the gay community who have asked and made representations for protection under the Bill because they feel it necessary. As I said before, when they have made that request it should be met.

I welcome the Bill so far as it goes. It needs to be tidied up substantially on Committee Stage. I appeal to the Minister to be open and receptive to the amendments which the Opposition spokespersons have indicated they will put down to the Bill. I urge the Minister to try to ensure that the very important further measure needed on racial discrimination in general is speeded up and brought before the House as quickly as possible.

Deputy De Rossa rose.

I am calling Deputy Abbott next and then I will call Deputy De Rossa.

My contribution will not be long. I welcome the Bill and I trust that it will be passed with appropriate expedition. I also trust that the Opposition parties will not press amendments which would be likely to cause delay or unnecessary controversy at a later stage. I welcome the generous support given by the Opposition parties to the provisions of the Bill.

The Bill can be approached from two perspectives: the domestic-national perspective and the international perspective. There are very strong domestic reasons why we should introduce this legislation. Even though this is a homogeneous country in terms of nationality and ethnic origin, there are a number of minority religions in the country, all of which can be protected by this legislation. Indeed, the majority religion in the South is the minority religion in the North and in that way the provisions of the Bill relating to protection against incitement to religious hatred appeal to all religious sections and I am sure will be welcomed by all. The fact that we are now in a position to ratify a very important UN convention on civil and political rights brings before us the importance of human rights. The fact that this Bill is now before the House highlights the fact that Ireland has always had a very strong commitment to human rights and to the international structures and instruments which have promulgated and defined these human rights, many of which have been accepted in the political and philosophical culture of this country as natural rights which were there prior to any convention or positive law.

The constructive comments made by the Opposition in relation to the inclusion of the travelling community are to be welcomed and I urge the Minister to bear them in mind in any modifications he might propose to the Bill. The travelling community may not be recognised by the courts as a group of people who should be protected by the Bill or who should come within its ambit, and the provision of separate defences and protections for the travelling people would be a very positive step and would be of great assistance to the travelling people and the public generally.

Problems arise from discrimination and its incitement to hatred against the travelling people from time to time. With the changing society and the changing cultural background of the travelling people, the changing physical contacts with which they live nowadays, strains and tensions have developed in this country in the last ten to 20 years. That the travelling people have changed from a nomadic, rural class, well integrated in a very special cultural way with the rural society in the thirties, forties and fifties, to a predominantly urban-based class is creating tensions. It would be very wrong and remiss of us if we did not recognise these tensions.

It is very unfortunate that various areas have fallen behind in dealing with the challenges posed by the proper treatment and settlement of the travelling people. I come from an area in County Westmeath where in the towns, Athlone and Mullingar in particular, there has been a very positive attitude towards housing the travelling people. Perhaps Mullingar might boast of the greatest success here in this regard. Many of these families have settled in and are now taking their place in an excellent way in the community and are well accepted as part of the community. I wish that that picture would be reflected throughout the country and, in particular, in the Dublin area. There, there seems to be an utter intransigence on the part of local populations to accept travellers into their midst.

Only some parts of Dublin.

Almost every part of Dublin that I have come across.

Come and see us in Tallaght and we will show you something.

There is an enormous cultural problem, and an enormous amount of generosity is required of ordinary people to encourage the tolerant attitude which is needed to help the travelling people to integrate. The mere provision of housing and of legislation such as is proposed in the Prohibition of Incitement to Racial, Religious or National Hatred Bill is not enough to ensure that the tensions which arise in which this hatred could be generated can be prevented. It is necessary, in addition to providing basic housing, for us as a society to redefine with the travelling people their future cultural role in this country. To that extent, in addition to housing, to physical facilities and places to live, we must look at the ethos of the travelling people and enable them to work out, through special training facilities and workshops, a basis for their positive contribution to our society in the years to come.

The current criticism — if criticism it may be — of ordinary people who may have prejudices against the travelling people is that the travelling people do not, in their eyes, make a contribution to, and perhaps take an excessive amount out of, society as they know it. They regard it as not putting sufficient back into it. We must set up structures to enable the travelling community to make their contribution, to give back to society what they can in the most colourful and creative way possible. We should not miss the opportunity here of recognising the positive qualities of the travelling people, their creativity, their dependability in relation to financial matters which is often overlooked. If we look at the record of rent paying, or mortgage paying, or loan paying of the travelling community, we find that they are much better in relation to meeting their commitments than any other section of society within that particular income group. That is a phenomenon which is very often not known by the general public. One sees that in local authorities. Wherever itinerants get houses they are very good at paying the rent and at ensuring that their commitments are met. This exhibits positive qualities among the travelling people that must be exploited.

Of course, there are travellers who get drunk, who get into crime. There are also very positive aspects in the culture of travellers in this country which exhibit a very high moral attitude to areas of life. There is the unfortunate tendency for communities suddenly to start off the hue and cry against the traveller if one of them steps out of line. That one isolated incident will be used in the classical racial hatred situation in an effort to show that the whole group are a bad lot and are to be excluded from society, if not actually persecuted.

This Bill, if it contains mention of the travelling community, will help that community, the general population and administrators and legislators to direct their minds towards the job that they have to do to ensure a full development of the travelling people and a full integration into the rest of the community in the years to come. I do not regard it as an impossible task. With goodwill all around, it can be done. This Bill, if amended as suggested by the Opposition to include the travelling community, will be a very major instrument in that regard.

The Bill can be approached from the two perspectives. The second which I mentioned was the international perspective. It is important that Ireland would be regarded by the international community as a country which would outlaw, in a formal as well as factual sense, racial and religious hatred. One thinks of the treatment of the Kurds in Iraq, Iran and neighbouring countries already mentioned by a previous speaker; the treatment of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria; indeed, the treatment by the Turks before independence in Bulgaria; the treatment of the Hungarian and German ethnic minorities in Romania. One thinks of the treatment of the Catholic religion in Latvia, Estonia and the Ukraine in years past and in the Ukraine to the present day. One thinks of the treatment of the Christian minority in the Armenian regions and of the Muslim minorities in parts of southern Russia. The list could go on and on. In all these areas the growth and promotion of religious and ethnic hatred and discrimination give rise to political and international tensions and to very considerable injustice and denial of human rights.

By passing this proposed legislation, this House shows to the world that we abhor that type of religious and ethnic discrimination. We have an historic detestation of the type of inherent imperialism that is concerned with that discrimination and the hatred which precedes and accompanies it. The proposed legislation has an important impact on the commitment of this country and other countries to the pursuit of the achievement of basic human rights. The passing of the Bill will certainly give our representatives in international fora dealing with the area of human rights and discrimination a higher standing and they will be in a position to lend greater weight to their arguments on behalf of disturbed and discriminated against minorities throughout the world.

There were comments in relation to the lack of definition and the difficulty of proving an intention on the part of a person saying certain things which could be an incitement to hatred but the Bill should not necessarily be rejected or technically amended as a result. The Bill is primarily a statement of intention and principle to which the public will react on a consensus basis. If we are dependent on prosecutions on a regular basis to prevent incitement to racial or religious hatred then, as a community in a small island, we have failed.

The Bill, first and foremost, puts forward the philosophical approach rather than the technical one. It will cause the culture to remain one of tolerance and moderation rather than causing the cul ture to be one where the technical provisions of the Bill will be tested on a regular basis and put to the extreme test. I hope this Bill will never be used. Certainly its provisions will be rarely used if the cultural and community experience over the past few years continues. We are lucky that there is generally a spirit of tolerance which can be encouraged to grow. I hope it will be encouraged to grow by the provisions of the Bill.

Section 2 excludes an offence from anything said in a place that is not a public place as defined by the Bill. I am worried that that could possibly drive hatred into private clubs or lodges. This country has had an unfortunate experience of secret societies promulgating hatred and disturbance from behind closed doors. Nevertheless, the provision that the matter would be dealt with in the public domain is an important first step and if it is ever necessary to examine the sufficiency of that provision, I am sure that, in the fullness of time, more detailed provisions can be provided. Once one legislates for the surveillance of private meetings of clubs and meetings generally behind closed doors one is going into a difficult constitutional area and is likely to run across fundamental rights in other areas of the people who wish to have privacy to discuss various matters.

The fact that one is in a country where there is freedom of expression through the newspapers and television will ensure that the activities of any secret societies or lodges inciting hatred will be fully exposed and the public in general will react against them. They will not get a chance to flower in a public area because of the provisions of this legislation. While a lot of hatred and sedition has been and might in the future be hatched behind closed doors in clubs or lodges, it must always reach the public domain by way of the newspapers or airwaves before it hurts someone. For that reason, the provisions of the Bill would influence the thoughts of anyone who would wish to form a club for the purpose of pursuing the objectives of religious hatred and discrimination and would prevent them from planning their undesirable activities in the knowledge that, if they reached the public domain, or if they put their plans into effect they would be stymied by this legislation.

There are, of course, areas where legislation can never reach. I recollect a particularly sad case which was documented — I think by the "Gay Byrne Show"— about a year ago relating to the case of a marriage of an Irish girl to a black man living in one of the Dublin suburbs. I was thinking how the legislation might be used to curb the type of alleged persecution reported in that programme of the unfortunate couple. The type of fly-by-night attacks and snide remarks made by anonymous people in crowds would be very difficult to catch under this legislation. One feels a sense of defeat when one realises that it is very hard to legislate for the bully and the purveyor of hatred. Ultimately one relies on the good sense of people not to engage in the sort of private bullying and discrimination evidenced by the report of that case.

No matter what one might say about the deficiencies of the Bill, it is an important step. I welcome its provisions and the positive reaction of the Minister — if it can be forthcoming — in relation to the travelling community. I do not see any reason for mentioning the gay community in particular in the Bill and I accept the reasoning of the Minister in his speech in the Seanad in relation to that.

I welcome Deputy Abbott's support for the idea that the travelling community should be specifically covered in the Bill, in whatever way that may be achieved. Deputy Taylor indicated that he would support the idea of a joint amendment coming from the Opposition parties to seek to have them included. I do not know whether that is necessarily a good idea, although I have no objection to it. It may be that a variety of amendments might be the best way of dealing with the problem as, when you apply different minds to a problem, you get a synthesis of other ideas. At any rate, I welcome his support and I hope it is an indication of the general opinion on the Fianna Fáil benches in regard to this matter.

Let me say also by way of preamble to what I have to say on this Bill that the Bill does not deal with the question of discrimination. It does deal with the question of incitement to hatred, which I presume could lead to discrimination, but it does not seek specifically to outlaw discrimination. I wonder whether on that basis this Bill would enable us to ratify the covenant. Article 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states:

All persons are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to the equal protection of the law. In this respect the law shall prohibit any discrimination and guarantee to all persons equal and effective protection against discrimination on any ground, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

That question is not dealt with in this Bill and it is not proposed to do so. I ask the Minister to indicate if he is satisfied that he would be allowed to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It is clear that we have not to date moved towards outlawing discrimination on the grounds referred to in Article 26.

For some time The Workers' Party have been seeking the introduction of legislation which would outlaw the incitement of racial, religious and national hatred. We acknowledge that introducing this Bill is a step forward but our welcome has to be conditional. The Minister's approach in regard to this matter is half-hearted. He has done the least possible to achieve what he thinks he is going to achieve — freedom to ratify the covenant. As I said, I have my doubts that he will be in a position to do so but even if he will be in a position to do so he has approached this matter in a minimal way and has avoided taking on board the very real concerns expressed by minorities in our society, such as the concerns expressed by the travelling and gay communities. No attempt has been made to cater for these groups in this legislation. This could have been done quite easily. The Minister may argue that it is not necessary to cater for them in this Bill so as to be in a position to ratify the covenant. I say, fine, but surely the opportunity should have been taken to deal with these very real problems.

The Bill reflects our tendency to clap ourselves on the back and to say that we are free by and large from the racism and racist attitudes to be found in other countries. Of course this is not necessarily so. It is true we have experienced no major racial confrontations and this is probably due to the fact that there is no significant immigration of nationals of other countries. The evidence shows that when Irish people go abroad, especially to countries which have significant racial minorities, we are not any better or worse when it comes to holding racist attitudes. There is nothing to suggest from our attitudes to minorities such as the travellers, blacks, coloureds or gay people that we have any reason to be complacent. There is some evidence to suggest that a person's race plays an important part in determining what way they will be treated by our immigration service.

The results of the two recent referenda, the so-called right to life amendment and the very modest proposal to introduce a limited form of divorce, would suggest that respect for the rights of minorities is not that deeply rooted, even for those of fairly substantial minorities. It would seem that in the case of the divorce referendum and in the case of travellers that the people who object are primarily concerned with property and property rights.

A vicious, murderous campaign has been waged by the Provisional IRA against the Protestant community in Northern Ireland for the best part of the past 20 years. A large number of people in the Republic seem to be either indifferent or at best ambivalent about this even though the people who pursue the campaign claim they are doing so in the name of the Irish people. It would be interesting to examine the findings of a study published in 1977 by Micheál Mac Gréil in a book entitled Prejudice and Tolerance in Ireland which ran to more than 500 pages. I am not aware whether the findings have been updated since then or whether anybody else has undertaken research in more recent times. The results of this survey carried out in the Dublin area are quite revealing and show, contrary to what we might expect, that when people were asked about what categories of nationals or others of a social category would be welcomed into the family by way of inter-marriage between 70 per cent and 80 per cent replied that they would be quite happy to welcome English, Welsh or Scottish people, unmarried mothers, deserted wives and a whole range of other people into the family but when it came to the travellers the percentage was as low as 30. The only people who were regarded with less esteem were criminals and drug addicts. Perhaps this is an insight into our psyche.

Another interesting aspect to the findings of the survey, despite our general tolerence towards the British, is that it was found among those surveyed that about 17 per cent expressed hard core anti-British attitudes, as they did in respect of blacks, coloureds and so on. As I said, there are no grounds, therefore, for complacency. Mícheál Mac Gréil felt that the findings of the survey indicated that a good case could be made for the introduction of a Minorities Rights Act which would have a positive effect on intergroup attitudes. At page 531 of the book Prejudice and Tolerance in Ireland he said and I quote:

It should include explicit guarantees of "fair employment", "fair housing", etc. Law governs behaviour and behaviour affects attitudes. Good minority relations legislation, therefore, could go a long way to the creation of a genuinely pluralist society in Ireland, both now and in the future.

It may be that attitudes have changed slightly during the past 12 years. The findings of the study indicate that there was less intolerance among the younger people interviewed than among the older people interviewed. On the other hand it may be that the older one gets the more intolerant one becomes. I do not know whether that is true.

It could be the reverse.

It may well be the reverse. I hope it is. It is an important study and we should not be too complacent or happy with ourselves here today because we are introducing legislation which will outlaw incitement to hatred while failing to deal with questions of discrimination against minorities in our State.

Much of the racism in the modern world has its origins in the colonial system under which the European countries considered themselves more civilised and enlightened than people in African and Asian countries, that the European way of life in some way had a God-given superiority over other lifestyles or cultures, and other countries and their peoples were there to be exploited for the benefit of the colonial powers. It is, of course, much easier to kill a person you have created in your mind as in some way inferior or not quite human, and that attitude to coloured and other people was developed in order to enable colonial powers to exploit them to the best advantage, to take their land and simply push them aside.

It is extraordinary when you look at countries where this has happened that even today some people you would consider to be the most enlightened regard aborigines, American Indians and others as something less than human. I was quite shocked some years ago when a friend of mine who had emigrated to South Africa came home for a couple of years — before he left he was quite radical — and told me how inferior the blacks were, their brains were that much smaller, they could not really manage things, they could not cope with running a country, they were inferior to the white people, if white people did not run South Africa it would fall into chaos and so on. When he was visiting the house his young son wanted to know if we did not have a black machine to do the housework. It was appalling. Nevertheless that is the reality of attitudes which exist in places like South Africa.

We should not be too complacent because there are elements of that kind of thinking in our own society. You have to pinch yourself sometimes when listening to the rhetoric used to support the Provisional IRA campaign in Northern Ireland. They talk about "Brits" and "Brits out" and then they settle down to define whom they regard as Brits. Sometimes you have to stand back when you are caught up in the furore about the British press, British justice and statements made quite freely in this House as well to the effect that there is no justice in British courts for Irish people. That is a condemnation of a whole 50 and odd million people in Britain simply because they happen to have had the unfortunate — or fortunate as the case may be — accident of being born on a particular island. We must be careful all the time and examine our consciences to ensure that we are not feeding such attitudes to people who may be less able to judge the rights and wrongs of the circumstances.

Prejudice which leads to hatred is based on ignorance and fear and it is surely the function of the people in this House to avoid creating a situation where that hatred or ignorance is perpetuated, particularly in relation to our fellow countrymen and women in Northern Ireland, be they Catholic or Protestant or of no religion whatsoever. Racial hatred is all too common in many countries. Just this week in the USA a former leading member of the Ku Klux Klan and an advocate of neo-Nazi racial policies was elected as a Republican member of Congress. In the last general election in France the National Front got 14 per cent of the vote. Racism is never far below the surface in various parts of the world. For instance, the way Palestinians have been treated by the State of Israel amounts in many respects to a form of racialism. This is particularly tragic as the State of Israel was established largely as a result of world horror at the unspeakable treatment of Jews by Nazi Germany.

As I have said, the worst example of modern racism is undoubtedly to be found in South Africa. Most modern proponents of racism try to disguise it as something else but there is no disguising the appalling racist nature of the South African State. The General Assembly of the United Nations has condemned apartheid as a crime against humanity and the UN Security Council reaffirmed that apartheid is a crime against the conscience and dignity of mankind. The Assembly declared that policies based on racial discrimination and racial superiority are reprehensible and repugnant to human dignity.

There is an obligation on us as a country to combat racism regardless of where it occurs throughout the world and to ensure that it never gets a hold here. To that extent it is regrettable that the Government have not taken a more positive attitude to the introduction of trade sanctions against the South African régime as Opposition leaders like Bishop Desmond Tutu have suggested. Indeed, it is ironic that our trade with South Africa continues to grow.

In relation to our own attitudes, of the 13 people deported from this State between 1983 and 1987 seven were Hong Kong Chinese, two were Nigerian, two were Ghanaian and one was a citizen of the USA. This seems to indicate that the colour of a person's skin can colour the attitude of the immigration authorities.

It has been widely acknowledged that there has been a problem here in recent years of racist and neo-Nazi organisations from other European countries taking advantage of the absence of any racial hatred legislation here to produce in Ireland offensive material which would have been illegal in their own countries. I have a couple of examples of that kind of thing here, one of which was produced, presumably, for distribution in Britain. It has an address: c/o 69 Eugene Street, Dublin 8. It is called People's News Service. I do not propose to read out any of the rubbish in it, but it is quite appalling. It is aimed directly at people in Britain but it uses an Irish address.

There is another newsletter with the glorious title in Irish of Ar Agaidh with an address at 40 Brian Boru Street, Cork City, Eire — a new perspective — and it contains various attacks on people, some of them appalling. Incidentally, it is dated April 1987, No. 6, so it is not ancient material by any means. It has some of the most appalling material in it. Interestingly enough, it has an attack on myself and others in this House, and on Deputy Mervyn Taylor, in relation to our policies. This kind of rubbish is being circulated not just in Britain. Ireland is not being used just as a place to print material for circulation in Britain. This material is circulated in Ireland as well by Irish people, not by British people. Therefore, we cannot be complacent about it. That the Bill will attempt to deal with this problem as well is welcome and we hope the measure will prove effective.

The fact that the Bill sets out to deal with incitement to hatred not just on the basis of race or colour, nationality or religion, or ethnic or national origin is also welcome. However, a major flaw in the Bill relates to the definition of "hatred". In section 2 hatred is defined as meaning hatred against a group of persons in the State. This seems an extraordinary definition. The only possible interpretation seems to be that it will not be an offence to stir up hatred against groups outside the State. In the Irish context this means it would not be possible to take action against those who attempt to stir up hatred against people in Northern Ireland, be they Protestant, Catholic, or otherwise. Section 3 which relates to radio or televsion broadcasts also uses this very restrictive definition of hatred as referring only to hatred against a group of persons in the State.

We are fooling ourselves if we do not recognise that the most pernicious form of radical and religious hatred in this country is represented by the campaign of the Provisional IRA and in a more minor way by the UVF. From their very establishment, we identified the Provos and their "Provisionalism" as a sectarian and racist philosophy which incited murder and violence against fellow Irish people and which had nothing in common with the Irish radical revolutionary tradition. The Provos may claim that the target of their campaign is the British Army, but the fact is that the vast majority of their victims have been Irish Protestants and Catholics who refused to support their campaign or actively opposed them.

I would remind the Deputy that Second Stage is to conclude at 2.30 and I understand there are three speakers who are anxious to have a few moments. While the Deputy is entitled to remain in possession as long as he likes, I know that having reminded him of these facts he will assess them in his own equitable way.

I do not propose to speak much longer. Much of the activity of the Provisionals, especially features such as the deliberate policy of murdering only sons of Protestant farming families in Border areas, amounts to a form of genocide. For too long sections of society in the Republic have been unwilling to face up to the genocidal, racist nature of the Provo campaign. There is a need for society to take a stronger stand against the Provisionals. It is not enough simply to stand aside and ignore the Provos in the hope that they will go away. The Provos and Provisionalism must be challenged politically. The Provos must be stood up to and defied in a democratic way. It is important not only to declare that their attitudes are not acceptable but to examine our own attitudes which might in some way feed their belief that in some way they are serving the interests of the country.

Given the record of the Provisionals, it seems appalling that in our first attempt to introduce legislation to outlaw racial and religious hatred we should effectively exclude their murderous campaign from the scope of the Bill. I would appeal to the Minister to look again at the definition of hatred. We will certainly be tabling an amendment on Committee Stage in regard to it. It seems a terrible indication of double standards that we should consider incitement to hatred of a group outside the State as less objectionable than a group within the State.

It is totally unacceptable that the Government have chosen to ignore the specific problems of travellers. The travelling community are probably the nearest we have in this State to an ethnic minority and there is no doubt that they have been subjected to what amounts to racial hatred on many occasions. We have at present a campaign of opposition in certain parts of County Dublin to the establishment of halting sites for the travelling community. This is deplorable. I represent the constituency of Dublin North-West which, I am proud to say, has done more than its share in offering facilities to the travelling people. Deputy Abbott referred to the integration of the travelling people. We should not approach the question of the travelling community from the point of view of seeking to integrate them into our way of life. We should obviously help those who choose to become settled but I understand quite a lot of them do not want to become settled. Our society should be such that they can choose not to integrate. Proper housing, educational and health facilities should be provided for them, as for other citizens.

Incitement to hatred is only one part of the problem. There is also the whole question of discrimination against people on the grounds of race, nationality or religion. This Bill will not make it illegal to discriminate against people on any of those grounds. Cases of discrimination against foreign students in terms of accommodation, entry to clubs and dances, etc. have been well documented, but there is nothing in our law or in this Bill which would prevent a landlord from refusing as a matter of policy to take black tenants or prevent a club from refusing to admit blacks or Jews to membership. Indeed, there are clubs who refuse to admit women, whom we cannot regard as a minority; I understand from the census that they may even be the majority. It is not a matter for amusement. Women are discriminated against in our society and there is no law to prevent it. There is nothing to stop people putting up a notice saying "no blacks served here" or "no Catholic need apply".

Or "no women served here".

We need legislation urgently to deal with the actual results of discrimination, as well as incitement to hatred.

The Minister for Justice, Deputy Gerard Collins, in the concluding sentence of his Second Stage speech in Seanad Éireann on the Prohibition of Incitement to Racial, Religious or National Hatred Bill, 1988, said:

I trust Senators will agree that this is a useful short measure which will enable us to ratify the UN Covenant and will enable us also to deal with any instances of incitement to national, racial or religious hatred that might manifest themselves in this country.

Those final sentiments with regard to hatred remind one that 280 years ago Dean Swift said: "We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another". In a world which has literally jumped over the moon in scientific terms and has created microchips to perform electronic feats of incredible magnitude, mankind had made very little progress along the road of human relations at the level of family, community, country, continent or commonwealth of nations. Hatred, prejudice and discriminatory practices are rife everywhere. While our country, small though it is, is possibly one of the most favoured in this regard, it is still subject to the ghastly wounding effects of intolerance, as evidenced by the conflict in the divided province of Ulster. This Bill is very important even if only to remind us of our duty and sacred obligation to be open-minded and tolerant on all the issues that tend to divide us. Divisiveness is a running sore that is made more virulent by self-righteous adherence to prejudiced viewpoints.

Essentially the purpose of the Bill is to enable the Government on behalf of the nation to ratify the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It will also eliminate the much publicised practice of using facilities here to enable the publication of racist material which we are given to understand is being distributed in other countries for the express purpose of igniting the flames of racial hatred and division.

Though a small nation, we are not without influence on the world stage and our ratification of the UN covenant will not go unnoticed. Small nations like ours do not have the capacity to be warmongers but do have the duty to be peacemongers. That is why in addition to passing this Bill we must also foster in our own land the conditions of peace, prosperity and goodwill which will bring us on the road to peace and harmony among all sections of Irish society and more especially in Northern Ireland where hatred, intolerance and discrimination has reached the level of ultimate shame.

The Minister in his Seanad speech referred to the increasingly multi-racial status of many neighbouring states and contrasted this with the racial structure of this country. I agree with the Minister that the structure is unlikely to change significantly for some time to come, but it is noticeable that a racial expansionary trend is slowly evolving and one is conscious of the increasing number of catering establishments that are decisively ethic in character.

Moves are afoot to attract students from abroad at economic fees to take their places in our third level colleges. The Royal College of Surgeons has a decidedly mixed ethnic population. The Irish Council for Overseas Students recently called a conference to discuss the special problems of overseas students. It is a fact that there have been some incidents of prejudice experienced by such students. It takes only one incident to create a wrong image. While our overseas ethnic groups are yet small in number it is essential that we treat them with the courtesy and kind attention which we expect of other nations where Irish citizens go to work or study. For that reason I would advocate that it is not just enough to have statutory instruments to proclaim our good intentions and be a bulwark against unthinking acts. We must also inculcate a sense of tolerance and goodwill towards other persons who differ in race, creed or colour. It is something which the members of the subject planning committees of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment could bear in mind as they plan the subjects for the new junior and senior certificate programmes in schools.

One group in Irish society mentioned in the debate has very distinct characteristics, the travelling people. I received correspondence from the Dublin Travellers Education and Development Group who claims it an irony that the travellers whom they described as Ireland's largest ethnic minority are not mentioned in the Bill. I understand their point of view. If the Minister includes the travelling people by name in the Bill, will it be said that he is hanging a label on them? Will it be said that by not naming them specifically the Bill cannot be taken to cover all groups? People who live in certain areas in Dublin are labelled to such an extent that they have difficulty gaining employment. I should like to ask the Minister to bear those views in mind when he is considering amendments for Committee Stage.

Recent events in the Islamic world have highlighted the delicate nature of ethnic perceptions, especially as they apply to religion and culture. When political dimensions are added to this we get a reaction of wide international impact. What started with the pen of one person now is a centre stage world event. That is a very good example of how racial tensions accelerated by world media attention can create a major international incident. This highlights the importance of the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as it makes it abundantly clear that the instruments of legislation required to handle these situations have to cross national boundaries. Ireland, by passing this Bill to enable our ratification of the UN Convention, is acting like a mature sovereign state. It should not be otherwise.

The interdepartmental committee identified two legislative changes which are necessary to enable the ratification. I have a very special welcome for the first one, which is the abolition of the death sentence for crimes committed by persons under 18 years of age. The majority of our young people are still at school up to that age and the concept of hanging a school child is utterly repulsive and repugnant.

Hanging anybody is repugnant.

We need to teach and emphasise more and more the sacredness of human life. This abolition is a step in the right direction and the Child Care Bill is doubly welcome because of it. It is very pleasing to note, too, that this Bill will enable the ratification of the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The combined effect of all of this is an underpinning of the basic tenets of the civilised society to which we and all nations aspire.

Apartheid is an ugly manifestation of racial discrimination at its worst and most evil. I hope the Bill will help strengthen our national resolve in relation to this evil wherever it is practised and in whatever form. It will no doubt be a major item when the Racial Discrimination Convention comes for consideration as this convention takes specific note of race, colour and national or ethnic origin.

It is an opportune time to have the Bill before the House with section 3 dealing as it does with persons involved in broadcasting. Those who will be in charge of the new broadcasting enterprises are getting a timely reminder of their duties and obligations under the provisions of the Bill. I hope that our radio and TV stations, as well as the printed news media will not alone seek not to offend under the terms of the Bill but will also see it as a moral obligation under their remit to consciously promote positive attitudes in areas both central and peripheral to the objectives of the Bill.

I should like to ask the permission of the Chair to share my time with Deputy Barnes. I am sure the Minister will be anxious to conclude the debate.

I understand that the Minister would like three or four minutes to reply to the debate. I should like to ask the Deputy to allow some time between now and 2.25 p.m. for his colleague, Deputy Barnes.

Deputies Durkan and Barnes should limit their contribution to five minutes each and that will leave me with five minutes to reply.

Is that agreed? Agreed.

I welcome the Bill and I agree with the remarks of most speakers that it is somewhat limited in its scope. Section 2 (2) (a) states:

In proceedings for an offence under subsection (1) if the accused person is not shown to have intended to stir up hatred, it shall be a defence for him to prove that he was not aware of the content of the material or recording concerned and did not suspect...

That is all very fine but a person who assaults another individual in the street could put forward the excuse that he did not realise he was going to hurt that individual. The Minister should tighten up that section. The reference in subsection (3) to a public meeting is important. There is a danger that private groups may, behind closed doors, pursue a policy that ultimately will lead to religious or national hatred causing serious offence to groups here and outside the country. I do not see why we should differentiate between materials produced here and those produced outside the country or offence caused here or outside the country. An offence of a racial or religious nature is an offence irrespective of where it is committed. The Minister should consider broadening the scope of the Bill on Committee Stage to cover that aspect. I am sure parties in the House will be able to produce an acceptable amendment.

I should like to refer to the relevance of the Bill to this country. Many Members gave examples of what started out on this island in the last 20 years as good old fashioned prejudice progressing to hatred and ultimately ending in violence. Those of us in public life and leaders on the island have a duty to ensure that we set an example in what we say and do. We should do everything possible to ensure that we do not mislead people by the line we take. We are all aware that warlords, sitting at their firesides, have put forward theories which ended in different groups being at each other's throats. Many lives have been lost for one cause or another.

The need for the Bill must be obvious to all citizens of this State and inhabitants of the island. Previous speakers referred to Europe in the thirties. That started off as something that was allegedly good for the community and gradually, from being a little bit of intolerance stemming from a prejudice, ended in a deep and bitter hatred which caused chaos and intolerance and unmentionable things to happen to groups of people within Europe. Coming up to 1992, we are attempting to change all that. In the space of five minutes it is not possible to cover what should be the scope of the Bill. I would like again to ask the Minister to try to broaden it. Various other speakers have already referred to the issues that I have referred to. I hope the Minister will see fit to improve this Bill because there is a need to do so. With that I will concede to my colleague, Deputy Monica Barnes.

Deputy Monica Barnes to demonstrate what can be done in five minutes.

I thank my colleague and the other Deputies in the House who cooperated in giving me the time to speak this afternoon. I thank the Minister also. It is a fine example of tolerance which is basically what this Bill is about.

One of the points I would like to mention is that the Child Care Bill is also this afternoon. I thank the Minister also needed with regard to the implementation and ratification of this Covenant. This Bill has been long in preparation but I would like to think it will be reached in the next session, even if it is necessary to set up a select committee to deal with the complexities of it. The Minister was so remarkably productive and constructive on the last select committee that it might be a good idea to have another one in the next session.

I would also remind the Minister that we still have to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. We are all thankful, particularly in the light of some of the remarks made here, that we have United Nations covenants and conventions to try to reach a world and teach it civilised tolerance among people with different beliefs. As Deputy Wright said this morning, we have an alarming and terrifying example of what religious extremism and lack of tolerance will do with regard to freedom of expression. We must always be vigilant.

In this community we need to develop our own tolerance, and I agree with Deputy Wright when he says that should start at school level. With regard to our own painful and violent situation, we should perhaps review our own history and our emphasis on the negative and the violent, and on erecting memorials only to people who killed or were killed. I hope that out of this Bill will come a recognition of the people who seek nonviolent means of achieving tolerance. Ireland is a small country that is painfully divided by the kind of intolerances this Bill is trying to combat. Let us learn from it. Let us build on it and make it the strongest possible Bill in the circumstances. Above all, let us try to be a shining light among the nations of the world by not alone recognising the conventions of the United Nations but by making sure that our legislation allows us to ratify them.

I would like to thank the Deputies for their constructive contributions to the debate on this short Bill. The first thing I wish to emphasise is that this Bill is not an anti-discrimination Bill. It is not intended to be such, and it is not intended to take the place of such a Bill, nor will it delay the consideration of whatever legislation might be necessary in the area of discrimination. Such legislation might cover matters such as discrimination in the area of employment, admission to places of entertainment, purchase, letting of accommodation and so on. This very wide subject would be totally outside the ambit of the Bill.

Racial discrimination in such areas is dealt with in the United Nations Racial Discrimination Convention. If this short Bill had to be expanded to cover racial discrimination in general it would set back the enactment of the Bill and consequently the ratification of the covenants for a considerable time.

During the debate a number of Deputies emphasised the desirability of making special provision in the Bill to prohibit incitement to hatred against members of the travelling community. I want to say again something which I have already said in the other House. I do not for a moment condone the use of abusive words of discriminatory behaviour where this is likely to incite hatred against any particular section of the community, especially where that section is considered to be vulnerable or disadvantaged. I said also that the principal objective of this Bill is to enable ratification of the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and for that reason the Bill is confined to categories mentioned in the covenant, that is to say, national, racial and religious hatred and the associated categories mentioned in the racial discrimination convention.

I acknowledge the strength of feeling expressed in this House and in the other House that the Bill should make special reference to the travelling community. I acknowledge this and I personally deplore behaviour or activities intended to stir up hatred against members of the travelling community. It is often maintained on behalf of that community that they constitute a separate ethnic group within the State and, of course, in so far as travellers can be said to have separate origins, they are covered by the Bill. However, in view of the weight of the argument on this point and since there is continuing doubt as to whether members of the travelling community can be said to have distinct ethnic origins so that they could be regarded as already covered by the Bill, I will certainly look favourably at the question to see if we have consensus on an amendment on Committee Stage. I invite an amendment on that subject and would sit down with those interested and use whatever professional skills are available through my office to have an amendment that we can all subscribe to, if we feel as I think we feel on this matter.

I have explained the reason for this Bill and its evolution in both international and domestic terms. Its objective is clear but limited. What I am doing is bringing in legislation to enable this country to meet international obligations and, within the limits of that legislation, to deal with incitement to hatred in a domestic context. Accordingly, within the limits of the Bill, the Gárda Síochána would have power to move against persons who prepare or possess inflammatory written material or recordings for distribution here or abroad. I have already said that I will try to specifically accommodate the travelling community and these are examples of how the Bill will have an important domestic relevance.

I am not prepared to extend the scope of the Bill to include people whose presence would do nothing to improve it. Indeed, extending the Bill to include named groups would give it unlimited scope and greatly reduce its impact because once the principle was conceded there would be pressure to further extend the scope of the legislation and deserving minorities such as racial or religious minorities would be lost sight of in an unwiedly piece of legislation lacking the respect I believe it will receive in its present format.

There were a number of points raised by different contributors. I am not too sure if I will be able to deal with them all. Deputy Flanagan referred to the constitutionality of the Bill. As I mentioned in my introductory speech, we are conscious of the constitutional right to free speech. That right is not absolute. The rights of citizens to express freely their convictions and opinions are subject to public order and morale. Similarly, Article 19 of the convenant on civil and political rights gives a right to freedom of expression. Again that right is qualified. It is subject to certain restrictions such as respect for the rights and reputations of others, the protection of national security and the public order and for public health or morals.

Deputies Flanagan, Colley, Taylor and Abbott thought that the definitions of public place and public meeting were too restricted. In fact these definitions are very wide in their scope and catch all but private meetings. I am sure Deputies will not like definitions to be so wide as to include the expression of opinions among, for example, family groups. Any meetings open to the public would be covered wherever they are held and whether the persons are there by right or by invitation or some other express or implied permission. A person incited to hatred when on private property, for example, the balcony of a house, would commit an offence if his words or behaviour were heard or seen by persons in a public place or at a public meeting.

Deputies Flanagan and Colley wanted clarification of the reasons certain proceedings could be taken only with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions. The effect of section No. 8 is that proceedings for an offence committed under sections 2, 3 or 4 may not be instituted except where the consent of the DPP has been obtained or the proceedings have been instituted by him. The purpose of this provision is to ensure that trivial or mischievous proceedings which might bring the law into disrepute are not brought and to ensure that prosecutions are brought only where the evidence is sufficient.

Deputy Colley referred to the absence of the word "ethnic" from the long title of the Bill. I will raise this point with the draftsman to see if it is necessary to extend the scope of the title of the Bill. She also referred to the meaning of the word "broadcast". The definition of broadcast in section 1 covers the transmission of visual images or sounds whether by wireless telegraphy or by a combination of wireless telegraphy and some other means such as a cable. It was argued in the other House that the definition does not cover transmission by cable alone. This is fairly rare in this country at present but it could become more common in the years to come. I undertook to consult the draftsman on whether the definition could be improved to include cable transmission on its own. He has advised that while the broadcasting of any recorded items by cable only is covered, the broadcasting of live items by such means probably would not be covered. Accordingly, I will bring in a suitable amendment on Committee Stage which will ensure that all transmissions by cable will be covered. Of course the word "cable" is not mentioned in the definition. I am using the term as a form of shorthand for all transmissions other than by wireless telegraphy.

I am sorry to interrupt the Minister but in accordance with the Order of the House of this day I must now put the question.

Question put and agreed to.

When is it proposed to take Committee Stage of this Bill?

If the Whips agree, perhaps on the first sitting day after Easter.

Committee Stage ordered for the first sitting day after the Easter recess.
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