Ireland has ditched its controversial hate speech legislation for the second time in five years. The news has been confirmed by the Republic of Ireland’s Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee.

Some are calling it a win for free speech, others remain certain that these desired restrictions on speech will be hidden in the depths of another piece of legislation where they will more difficult to fight against.

Despite there being little-to-no appetite for censorship laws among the Irish people, Ms McEntee has insisted that elements of the hate speech law will be included as amendments within the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022.

‘In order to bring forward new hate speech legislation we need a consensus. We don’t have that at the moment,’ the Minister for Justice admitted.

‘If you attack a person, commit a crime against a person or a group of people, simply because of who they are, the colour of their skin, where they have come from … there will be a tougher sentence, a harsher sentence, at the end of the day.’

Will this be applied equally to all groups of people, including ethnic Irish citizens, when they are attacked? That is the question troubling the public in an era where being critical of activist politics can be seen as ‘hateful’.

Those in favour of the bill had previously pointed out that ‘Ireland does not have specific hate crime offences set out in law, making [them] an outlier in the Western world’ and that the real purpose of the bill was to ‘protect those who are most vulnerable’. Whether or not these laws in other parts of the world are a ‘good thing’ or used fairly and appropriately remains an open question. Can Australians, for instance, say that 18C is used in an even-handed way, or that the Human Rights Commission protects Australians equally…?

It is understandable why the average Irish citizen is troubled, considering they are the ones who feel under threat by the rapid increase of criminal activity and economic calamity caused by the political class.

There is growing tension between national leaders fulfilling their ‘humanitarian’ requirements on the world stage while straining the cultural fabric of their countries. Those who speak out against this pattern of behaviour are at immediate risk of being called ‘hateful’ and hit with a criminal conviction if this sort of legislation were to pass. The UK appear to be world leaders in this speech correction process, having recently emptied their jails to make room for protesters.

Which leads many to ask, who does hate speech legislation protect – the vulnerable or politicians?

Those who drafted the legislation insist that, if it were ever to pass in some form or another (which seems likely), Irish citizens will still ‘be able to offend other people or express views which makes others uncomfortable’ and ‘debate issues regarding protecting characteristics’. That’s all well and good except ‘harm’ and ‘hate’ are never defined while ‘reasonable’ is left up to the opinion of the court.

When the law says that there will be ‘defences for reasonable and genuine contributions to literary, artistic, political, scientific, religious, or academic discourse, and fair and accurate reporting’ one can only wonder if all religions will be given an equal footing or if some – the more easily offended, for instance – will have the scales of justice shifted in their favour.

Women already understand this, as their rights have been forced to bow in favour of transwomen who are seen as more vulnerable and therefore, given priority by the law. It is a natural consequence of identity politics where social groups become more important in the eyes of the justice system than individuals and their historic (and hard fought for) rights.

As for the claim of ‘fair and accurate’ reporting, we have enough evidence of the politically-charged use of ‘fact-checking’ to confirm that ‘accurate’ will depend not on facts, but on the preferred narrative of the day. It would take a matter of moments to dismiss a contrarian newspaper as peddling misinformation to excuse state-sanctioned censorship against them and their editors.

Freedom of expression is meant to be a protected right within the Irish Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights, but this ‘right’ has been watered down in the name of ‘safety’ and ‘tolerance’ to the point it no longer exists except as a puddle rapidly evaporating on the floor of Parliament.

Prior to the decision being made to scrap the legislation, Elon Musk promised to fund any challenge to the Irish hate speech legislation – a genuine threat, given he is currently involved in litigation elsewhere in the world to defend freedom of speech.

‘It’s so extreme that you could be put in prison for having the wrong meme on your phone,’ said Musk. ‘That’s insane … our default position is to challenge any legislation that infringes upon people’s ability to say what they want to say … we’ll make sure that if there’s an attempt to suppress the voice of the Irish people that we do our absolute best to defend the people of Ireland and their ability to speak their mind.’

The problem with these minor victories in the face of global censorship is that the machine of government never goes away.

Governments want to stop people openly expressing hostility and anger toward a series of extremely damaging policies that have been implemented in lock-step across the West, effectively on the – if not instruction – then the suggestion of United Nations and their ‘goals’.

As native citizens realise that their countries are in the process of cultural collapse, they will need more rights to free expression, not additional complications of censorship.