Ireland became the mockery of the world this past month with contributions by Minister for Justice Helen McEntee and the Green Party’s Pauline O’Reilly.
McEntee was widely regarded as a sloppy attempted tyrant while O’Reilly’s comments about restricting freedoms were so absurd as to be met with universal incredulity.
The government has parked their ill thought out ‘Hate Speech Bill’ now, which flat out refuses to define what ‘hate’ is.
In its place, they are hoping to exert continued control over their populace through legislation that they have termed as being related to ‘Safe Access Zones’.
In a bombshell announcement last week, former prolife politician Stephen Donnelly announced that the state would assume control over church grounds that were situated in proximity to hospitals, with threat of prosecution if someone was deemed to be praying silently against abortion or behaving in any manner whatsoever that might discourage someone, even remotely from having an abortion.
The legislation that is being pushed through has been composed on the basis of non existent protests at Irish hospitals.
Eamon O’Cuiv pointed this out:
If passed, this bill would mean that Ireland is the only country to have such legislation without having abortion clinics, which led Garda Commissioner Drew Harris to say that no such law is needed.
Michael McNamara TD told the Dail today:
This begs the question as to why we are passing redundant legislation. We seem to be doing so for no reason other than that we strongly desire to fight the culture war and bring this culture war to Ireland. It appears to be a case of saying "Let's have it on; we have nothing better to do in this place". There are no greater problems to be legislated for than this culture war, which appears not to exist in Ireland for a variety of reasons. Of course, this is primarily because the legislation provides that there are not abortion clinics or other healthcare facilities. Rather, it is a service provided in healthcare facilities. It seems to be a solution chasing a problem, rather than trying to find a solution to a problem.
I do not know whether the Minister is aware of it, but there is a chapel in the National Maternity Hospital just across from us on Merrion Square, so it is a place of worship. The chapel is located in the building, since the hospital is one building. There is the exemption straight away. There is a church in the maternity hospital in Limerick where masses are said weekly, as they are in Holles Street. As such, it would appear that section 2(2) does not apply to either as the legislation is drafted. There is a church in St. Vincent's hospital, where the Government is proposing, if it ever gets around to it, to build a new national maternity hospital. This appears to be legislation that adds nothing to the Statute Book.
As regards disseminating information or merely praying, it must be proven that it is likely to change someone's mind and it has to regard a building where there is no public worship. There is public worship in all of the buildings I have mentioned. It is a nonsense, a waste of time and a tokenistic effort to be involved in some kind of a culture war that, thankfully, is unnecessary in this State as of now. For these reasons, I oppose the Bill.
It is a symptom of the inertia of the Irish church that there has been little revolt to the government seeking to control what happens on its grounds, or even to believers on the streets.
There is nothing, absolutely nothing, to indicate that this government will hesitate to use this to imprison Catholics. They sent Gardai to visit priests who allowed single extra mourners at funerals during Covid (while the government themselves broke every rule), they demonise and dehumanise us daily on social media and in the Dail and they have stated their intention to remove Catholicism from every facet of public life that is within their remit.
Only recently, the Irish government’s Green Party surrounded a church in Kerry during Mass after a sermon objected to their policies on marriage.
The Irish Catholic have taken the bill seriously and in the spirit that it is intended, as a power grab against the church and its believers.
They are alone however, as the rest of society seems to fail to grasp that this is as frightening, if not more, than the ‘Hate Speech Bill’.
